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Book ^3 ^ _ 

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REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 
OF A MID AND LATE VICTORIAN 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM 

THE RELIGION OF SOCIALISM 

OUTLOOKS FROM THE NEW STAND- 
POINT 

STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLU- 
TION 

GERMAN SOCIETY AT THE CLOSE 
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

THE PEASANTS' WAR IN GERMANY. 
1525-1526 

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE 
ANABAPTISTS 

GERMAN CULTURE, PAST AND PRE- 
SENT 



ALSO, JOINTLY WITH WM. MORRIS 
SOCIALISM : Its Growth and Outcome 




Copyrif^ht photo by\ 



E. BELFORT BAX. 



[C. V.aidyk, Ltd. 



REMINISCENCES AND 
REFLEXIONS of a MID 
AND LATE VICTORIAN 



BY 

ERNEST BELFORT BAX 

(bakristxr-at-law, middle timple) 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS SELTZER 

5 WEST 50th street 

1920 



6to^ 



'P^^o. 






(i4// r/^A/5 reserved) 



i 



I 



PREFACE 

The following chapters were written at intervals 
during the year 1916. They were taken in hand 
on the suggestion of two well-known London pub- 
lishers, who assured me that autobiographical 
notes, reminiscences, and reflexions were, barring 
fiction and travels, the form of literature in which 
the British public showed most interest at the present 
time. One's natural modesty, assuming one to be 
a mentally fairly well-conducted person, makes one 
more or less diffident in writing about oneself. 
Whether I answer to the above description or not, 
certain it is that in penning these pages I have felt a 
shyness in recording personal facts, which has led me 
to damp down the personal note as a general rule 
throughout the book — some friendly critics, to whom 
I have shown a portion of the manuscript, say too 
much so. Be this as it may, the aim I have kept 
before me in writing these somewhat disjointed notes 
and reminiscences has been rather to offer data and 
suggestions, slight and scattered though they may 
be, for the due appreciation, now or hereafter, of the 
particular period of historic time in which my life 
has been cast — to wit, roughly speaking, the last third 
of the nineteenth and the opening years of the 
twentieth century. 

For the rest, I am well aware that the present class 
of work affords ample scope for the detractory anim- 
adversions of the anonymous critic who wants to 
be " nasty." In a work of reminiscences and reflexions 



6 PREFACE 

there are almost bound to be some reminiscences which 
strike some reader or other as being uninteresting 
and perhaps trivial. These may be the very parts 
of the book which attract another class of reader. 
Of the reflexions, again, naturally, while some will 
appeal to one, the same will antagonize another reader. 
As regards reviewers, in this connexion, I suppose 
I shall come off badly at the hands of him or her whose 
views are those of pro-Feminist fanaticism, who will 
doubtless find the book very insipid, or at least will 
say so. The religious fanatic who has the charge of 
noticing the book in the Press will also probably have 
his " knife into me," and express himself to a similar 
scornful effect. These are things of course an author 
has to put up with in taking up a definite standpoint 
on controversial subjects where feeling runs high. 

Notwithstanding such not unbiased judgments 
that I probably have to expect from the aforesaid 
reviewers, I must plead guilty to the conviction that 
there are those among the reading public who, should 
they come across the book, will find at least something 
to interest them in the somewhat varied contents 
of its pages. 

PS. — The publication of this book has been unavoidably 
delayed for more than a year, mainly owing to the diffi- 
culties attending the operations of the printing and 
publishing trades at the present time. Meanwhile, I may 
remark, the death of more than one person alluded to in 
the following pages as living has unhappily supervened. 
Since 1916 changes, moreover, in the political situation, 
notably the Russian Revolution and its developments, have 
taken place. These events, however, I do not think 
materially affect anything in the contents of the volume. 

E. B. B. 

January 28, igi8. 



CONTENTS 

PBAPTER PAOE 

I. REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH . 9 

II. MEN AND MOVEMENTS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES . 34 

III. ON CENTURY - END LITERATURE, ART, AND 

PHILOSOPHY . . . . -58 

IV. THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION . . 73 

V. PERSONALITIES OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT IN 

ENGLAND . . . . -94 

VI. PERSONALITIES OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT ON 

THE CONTINENT . . . I26 

VII. LITERARY WORK ..... I56 

VIII. CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE IN LONDON AT THE END 

OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . . I73 

IX. THE MENTAL OUTLOOK OF THE ENGLAND OF 

TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY . . .. 187 

X. VARIORUM REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS .211 

XI. WHEN THE WAR CAME .... 234 

XII. CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS .... 257 

INDEX ...... 281 



Reminiscences and Reflexions of a 
Mid and Late Victorian 

CHAPTER I 

REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

Among the crowd of vaguely remembered trivial 
incidents of very early childhood, the earliest that 
has distinctly impressed itself upon my mind is the 
identification of the colour blue in general with the 
sky in particular. This I have reason to believe 
occurred at Leamington about the month of September 
in the year 1857. ^ must have been then a little over 
three years of age, having been born on July 23, 1854. 
One or two other things I can recall concerning childish 
ways of regarding the world which illustrate the parallel 
between the mind of the young child and that of primi- 
tive man. I can recall, for instance, how on one 
occasion our cat returned to the kitchen one morning 
with evidences of having been out in a fight during 
the night. How well I remember, in pondering over 
the incident of the battle of the cats, that I could 
not divest myself of the notion of their having talked 
to each other and so started the quarrel, although 
well aware that my elders did not believe in animals 
talking. Mine was then clearly a state of mind in 
which myths of talking beasts arise in early ages. It 



10 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

is undoubtedly an interesting fact to be able to recol- 
lect, if only in a glimpse or two, a childish mental 
condition, quickly outgrown, but which indicates 
having passed through a state of mind, however tran- 
sitory, corresponding to that of primitive humanity. 

The scene of most of my earher childish reminis- 
cences was Brighton, where we lived for some years. 
At that time the atmosphere of the George IV period 
still lingered in the town. Superannuated old gentle- 
men, in costume approaching that of the earlier part 
of the century, were still occasionally to be seen sunning 
themselves on the sea-front, and especially in the King's 
Road, of an afternoon. It was at Brighton that I 
first became aware of the larger issues of the world. 
The American Civil War and the cotton famine in 
Lancashire were among my earliest recollections of 
public events. The International Exhibition of 1862, 
to which I was taken late the following Autumn, was 
also a noteworthy event of the time to me. I remember 
the talk occasioned by Encke's comet in 1861, but 
as it was in the middle of Summer I was never allowed 
to stop up late enough to see it myself. 

At that time yellow-bodied carriages with a mottled 
black and white dog running behind them were still 
to be seen rolling up and down the King's Road. Then 
was the period — that of the early sixties — of the uni- 
versal pot-hat (the old beaver was still occasionally 
to be seen with elderly gentlemen), of the broad-cloth 
frock coat, of women with enormous crinolines — 
the younger ones with hair done up in nets, the older 
ones sporting long curls ; of tallow candles, which 
might be seen hanging up in bundles outside oil-shops, 
of bedroom candlesticks with their necessary snuffers- 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 11 

Gas had only recently been introduced into private 
houses and was still looked at askance by some as 
a dangerous innovation. The tea-urn was in its after- 
noon glory. Daguerreotype photographs were by no 
means out of date, though they were just beginning 
to be superseded by the more modern photography. 
Smoking was not as yet very common among the 
middle classes, but where practised, it was chiefly in 
the form of the cigar, cigarettes being quite unknown 
to the general public. Dickens, it may be remem- 
bered, in " Nicholas Nickleby," describes it as a dis- 
tinguishing mark of some Spaniards he alludes to, 
that they smoked what he calls " little paper cigars." 
The clay pipe was universal among the working classes. 
Turning to the literature of the period, in the depart- 
ment of fiction the great lights of the early sixties 
were of course Thackeray who died in 1863, Dickens, 
Wilkie Collins, Bulwer Lytton, and a host of minor 
writers, such as Anthony Trollope, Whyte Melville, 
Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Braddon, etc., who produced 
novels sold in red and yellow covers which were pro- 
minent in all station bookstalls. For the more in- 
tellectual reader the works of the Brontes, George Eliot, 
and Charles Kingsley were the vogue. In the more 
serious departments, Hallam and Macaulay, recently 
dead, Carlyle, Mill, Grote, etc., were in the heyday of 
their glory as embodying the cultured side of English 
life. Poetry was represented chiefly by Longfellow 
and Tennyson. Browning's fame came a little later. 
Darwin had but recently startled the public and shocked 
the theological world by the publication of the " Origin 
of Species." But the really cultured class existing 
at that time in England was, as compared with the 



12 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

present generation, a very restricted one. The in- 
tellectual possibilities of the English people were then 
stunted and cramped by the influence of the dogmatic 
Calvinistic theology which was the basis of its tradi- 
tional religious sentiment. 

The life our family lived during my childhood was, 
owing to various causes, exceptionally quiet and retired. 
Most of the relations and friends who used to visit 
us were socially uninteresting and of no great account 
from the side of intellectually profitable intercourse. 
My paternal grandfather, I may mention, however, whose 
family originally came from Ockley, in Surrey, was 
born in the year 1777, dying in 1868, and was conse- 
quently in a position to remember the French Revo- 
lution. I recollect as a child once questioning him 
upon the subject, and his relating to me the horrible 
reports of civil slaughter in Paris that reached his 
native village. I have since thought that the special 
event he may have had in his mind was possibly 
the September massacres of 1792. But the old man, 
to my disappointment, showed a tendency to switch 
his conversation off on to the more recent events of 
1848, which seemed to me a very insipid change of 
venue. My grandfather also recollected hearing some 
of the great singers of the early part of the nineteenth 
century, notably John Braham. On the whole, how- 
ever, as will be seen, it was my lot to grow up 
under no very favourable conditions for intellectual 
development. The subjects talked of in the family 
circle were mainly connected with religious dogma, 
or the sectarian interests of the various religious bodies. 
Preachers and the pure quality of their orthodoxy, 
as opposed on the one side to " Romanism " and on 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 18 

the other to " Latitudinarianism," bulked largely 
among the topics of conversation with ours as with 
other middle-class families at the time. A severe 
censorship in the matter of the literature that was 
allowed into the house was maintained. The only 
reading encouraged was that directly or indirectly 
favouring the " Evangelical " theology. As usual 
with the bulk of early and mid- Victorian middle-class 
society, the theatre in all its forms was banned. In 
fact in many cases, ours among them, any form of 
amusement was supposed to savour more or less of 
godlessness. In those where it was not absolutely 
forbidden there was a tinge of disapproval attaching 
to it as having the shadow of " worldliness " upon it. 
The most cruel of all the results of mid- Victorian 
religion was perhaps the rigid enforcement of the most 
drastic Sabbatarianism. The horror of the tedium 
of Sunday infected more or less the whole of the latter 
portion of the week. Many a story was laid before 
the youth of the period to the effect that the boy who 
began by Sabbath-breaking inevitably ended his days 
on the gallows In fact, didactic narrative, often 
embodied in the form of the religious tract, was a 
much commended means in the Evangelical world 
for converting the sinner from the error of his ways. 
Thus, to discourage the gratification of the taste for 
the drama, a moral, inculcating the retribution which 
the Evangelical God sometimes inflicted on frequenters 
of " play-houses," was drawn from the history of 
fires that had taken place in theatres. But this was 
not all — I can recall a tract (I think it was) which 
told the story of the conversion of a lady playgoer 
who, on passing into the theatre, was struck by seeing 



14 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the words "To the pit" in illuminated letters in front 
of her. The notion that entering the pit of a theatre 
would inevitably land her ultimately in the other 
" pit " said to be bottomless, appealed to her as a 
solemn warning ; so she turned back, sought out a 
suitable conventicle, and became a converted character. 
But although brought up in this hot-bed of Calvin- 
istic Methodism, and hearing the duties of becoming 
converted and of cultivating one's soul in the direc- 
tions approved of by the Evangelical sects, the whole 
theological business never affected me very deeply. 
The introspection of the soul and the whole sentiment 
connected with the Christian cult did not specially 
appeal to me. I believed in it, of course, in a way, 
knowing nothing else, and hence it being the only theory 
of the universe available for my young intelligence. 
What interested me more than any maunderings 
anent the individual soul, being " born again " and 
the like, was when my old governess, who took a truly 
maternal interest in me, used to talk to me about 
Daniel's image and its four monarchies. This gave 
me, in its way and within the limits of the current 
orthodox creed, a theory of history, such as it was, and 
I have always felt the need of an intelligible doctrine 
of history. It appeared to me as much more inter- 
esting than any reflexions on the communion of the 
individual soul with the living presence of its God 
or its Saviour, and so forth. But if my childish belief 
in Christian dogmas was somewhat perfunctory, there 
was one thing that I did believe in, although I did 
not talk much about it, and that was the supernatural. 
The somewhat inconsequent assurances of my elders 
that God, although in the past He had done so, did 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 

not permit any manifestation of the supernatural 
since the beginning of the Christian era, and certainly 
not in our days, was not quite good enough for me. 
The credentials of their assurances in this connexion 
seemed to me doubtful, and the assurance itself to 
express a purely arbitrary assumption. 

The foregoing were the current ideas of the English 
middle class half a century ago. In economics and 
politics a few crude aphorisms were supposed sufficient 
to satisfy every reasonable mind. The enonomic 
problem of the distribution of wealth, of the antithesis 
of rich and poor, was supposed to be satisfactorily 
accounted for and settled by the assumption that 
wealth was the reward of industry and virtue, and 
poverty the result of laziness and incompetence, either 
in the present generation or their fathers. The pohtics 
of the middle classes of the sixties was Manchester- 
School Liberalism, coloured more or less — more in some 
circles and with some persons, less in others — with a 
snobbish deference to the upper classes, and especially 
Queen Victoria, who, the middle-class mind of the 
time flattered itself, was a woman after its own heart. 
Cobden, Bright, and Palmerston were names to conjure 
with in middle-class political circles. As regards 
foreign politics, the views of the English middle classes 
were largely dictated by their anti-Catholic sentiments. 
Garibaldi was their popular hero, for example, even 
more because he fought against the Papal domin- 
ation in Italy than as a national patriot. This feeling 
played a part with many people even as late as 1870 
in determining the strong sympathy with Germany 
in the Franco-Prussian War of that year. In short, 
the middle-class mind of fifty and sixty years a^o raa 



16 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in certain well-defined grooves which determined its 
attitude in all particular cases. The main interest, 
for the middle-class man or woman of the period 
in question, outside " business " or the " home " was, 
as already intimated, religion, especially the inter- 
necine rivalry and quarrels of the various Christian 
sects and churches. For art there was little feeling. 
In fact, there is only one form of art which can be 
specially associated with the society of the period, 
and that was in music, viz. the Oratorio. It is true 
even the Oratorio, as being a form of public enter- 
tainment, was looked upon somewhat doubtfully by 
the ultra pious. But still Oratorio music did un- 
doubtedly represent the special form in which the 
consciousness of the society in question seemed to find 
its artistic expression. For every society has its own 
artistic expression, such as it is and what there is of it. 
That the intrinsically ugly and, to many of us to-day, 
repulsive Calvinistic theology of Evangelicalism could 
have given birth to any genuine feeling at all, it is 
difficult to understand. But, as I said above, such 
as it was, undoubtedly it received its expression in 
the Oratorio music of Handel and Mendelssohn, par- 
ticularly in the " Messiah " and the " Elijah." I 
would signalize especially, in this respect, as typical, 
the aria " O Rest in the Lord." It is said that when 
Mendelssohn had written this melody he was inclined | 
to strike it out of his work as being too sickly sweet, 
but was prevailed upon by his friends to leave it in. 
That the composer was intrinsically right in his esti- 
mate of it will be probably the opinion of many 
in the present day, but it is none the less true that 
it does typically embody the emotional religious senti- 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 

ment of the English middle classes of the fifties and 
sixties, in so far as that was genuine. This was shown 
by the enormous vogue it had. It was to be heard 
in every church, chapel, and parlour where there was 
a piano, at this time. It is one of those remarkable 
musical inspirations which seem to carry in them the 
whole atmosphere of a period. In its own way, a 
very different way certainly, it is in this respect com- 
parable with " Ein' feste Burg " and the " Marseillaise." 
The latter embody the virihty of the German Refor- 
mation and the French Revolution respectively. " O 
Rest in the Lord " embodies the artificial, even where 
genuine, bourgeois emotional sweetness of the " place 
of worship " and the family parlour with its anti- 
macassars and tea-urns of the English mid-nineteenth 
century. 

Before taking leave of this world of the sixties — this 
world of tallow candles, snuffers, tea-urns, women's 
hair-nets and crinolines, men's broadcloth, stocks and 
pot-hats, four-post bedsteads, feather beds, hymns and 
oratorios — there is one question, which has always 
interested me, to be mooted. In how far are we to 
regard the religiosity, the theological and ecclesiastical 
interests, of the early and mid- Victorian period as the 
product of hypocrisy, and in how far was it genuine ? 
That some of all this was genuine and a good deal of 
it deliberate hypocrisy I have no doubt whatever, but 
I should attribute the bulk of it to something between 
these two extremes which I should term unconscious 
hypocrisy. By unconscious hypocrisy I understand 
an attitude of mind which succeeds in persuading 
itself that it believes or approves certain things as 
it professes to do, while really in faro conscientice this 

2 



18 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

profession is dictated by a sense of its own interests, 
real or supposed. For instance, in discussing Free- 
thought in religion or Radicalism in politics, as a make- 
weight to the conventional arguments against such 
subversive doctrines, one often heard it thrown in, 
that if Freethought prevailed, or the political con- 
stitution were overthrown, there would be no security 
for property and its interests. Apart from the truth 
of theological doctrine or political theory, religion 
and the existing English constitution were necessary 
to keep the lower classes in order. Now it was this 
sort of remark, thrown in as above said as a make- 
weight, that first opened my eyes to the subconscious 
insincerity or unconscious hypocrisy of much of middle- 
class public opinion on these subjects. I could not 
escape the conviction that this secondary considera- 
tion, ostensibly a mere " aside " in the argument, 
was really the determining one in the formation of that 
opinion, albeit this fact was in many cases not con- 
sciously realized by the persons in question themselves. 
A fairly typical illustration of what is said is afforded 
by the case of Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, who 
in 1862 published a book on biblical criticism, the 
views contained in which are in their substance com- 
monplaces to-day, but were at that time regarded as 
staggeringly subversive. The view that if the world 
in general came to disbelieve in the Mosaic authorship 
and the historicity of the Pentateuch, the world 
itself — Men entendu the mid- Victorian world of that 
date — would fall to pieces, was the current middle- 
class opinion. It seems scarcely credible to-day, but 
so it was. Hence the zeal with which the current 
theology with its dogma of biblical infallibility was 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 10 

defended at all costs. But in the case of the aforesaid 
Bishop of Natal there was an additional reason for 
using the cry of heresy as a means for effecting his 
discomfiture. Dr. Colenso was an eminently humane 
and just man, and in consequence was zealous in de- 
fending the rights of the native population of Natal 
against attempts of the British settlers to ride rough- 
shod over those rights and to exploit the natives in 
their own interests. Hence the worthy Bishop was by 
no means a persona grata with the influential colonial 
magnates, or with the colonists generally, of his diocese. 
The charge of heresy was therefore a godsend to these 
gentry as a weapon for getting him removed. Some- 
how or other they failed, owing, it was said, to their 
having played their cards badly with the Ecclesias- 
tical Court which judged the case. 

But notwithstanding the power of the middle-class 
ostracism of heterodox opinions, the decade of the 
sixties from its beginning onward showed an increas- 
ing number of books pubUshed, venturing to traverse 
the current conventional opinion of the day. My 
own childhood was padded towards the fag-end of the 
period of moral and intellectual slavery in question, in 
which the Calvinistic dogmas of Evangelicalism in religion 
and the Cobden-Bright dogmas of the Manchester 
School in economics and politics, modified by a snobbish 
reverence for authority in general and the upper classes, 
dominated the mentality of the whole social atmo- 
sphere. Those who want to know what it had been at 
an earlier period of the century, say during the forties 
and fifties, may consult the two vohimes of the late 
Mr. A. W. Benn's excellent " History of English Ration- 
alism in the Nineteenth Century," or the short survey 



20 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in Professor Bury's " History of Freedom of Thought " 
(pp. 176-251). But though my youthful days were 
passed towards the end of the period in question, 1 
experienced quite enough for it to have left an en- 
duringly unpleasant reminiscence behind it. This is 
the more to be regretted as it affects one's memories 
of persons long since dead, whom one cannot alto- 
gether dissociate in one's mind from the at once morally 
repulsive and intellectually foolish beliefs they held, 
or professed to hold, and expected other people to 
hold. In themselves doubtless excellent, good-hearted 
people, their characters were poisoned and warped by 
the foulness and follies of their creed. 

In the year 1864 we left Brighton and went to Hamp- 
stead. Here we led a life almost as retired as that 
of Brighton. I went to school for a short time, but 
my education was mainly conducted by private tuition. 
Here I began to take a definite interest in things, 
among others natural history, and especially entomology. 
Here also I made various acquaintances and two 
friendships, the one a schoolboy friendship originating 
in common interests, butterfly collecting, etc. This 
was with the late Vivian Byam Lewes, who subse- 
quently became the great chemist, whose lectures 
on the subject of practical chemistry in relation to 
the war are well known, and whose labours and studies 
in this department were only terminated by his sudden 
death at the comparatively early age of sixty-three 
in October 1915. Though close associates in boy- 
hood and early youth, we subsequently drifted asunder 
owing to various causes, distance of residence, diversity 
of interests and other things, and I seldom saw Lewes 
after he had attained to manhood. While not pos- 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 

sessed of any special intellectual qualities, Lewes was 
the type of the conscientious and thorough, if narrow, 
scientific specialist. He was the nephew of George 
Henry Lewes, the son of a brother of his who was 
killed as an officer of the Army Medical Corps in the 
Crimean War. His mother, a bright, intelligent woman, 
was a connexion of the Wellesley family. She much 
impressed me during my later boyhood owing to the 
freedom of her views on theological and political sub- 
jects. As regards the latter, it is true she clung to 
many of the prejudices of her time and class, with 
a tincture of aristocratic antipathies thrown in. This 
was still more the case with economic questions, where 
she was Manchester School to the backbone. Yet, 
strange to say, in spite of this strain of Whiggery 
and Manchesterism in her, this woman was one of the 
half-dozen persons of my acquaintance from whom 
a few years later I got some sympathy on the subject 
of the Commune. The barefaced misrepresentations 
and obviously unjust judgments of the bourgeois Press, 
and the brutalities of the Versaillaise soldiery, com- 
bined to disgust her with the enemies of the Commune. 
She also was prepared to recognize the high ideal 
underlying the movement and animating many of its 
advocates. Mrs. Edward Lewes was the first woman 
I had met having any pretensions to high culture or 
intelligence, and her intellectual superiority to oth»r 
women I knew was a revelation to me. 

The other friendship I made in Hampstead during 
the late sixties was more enduring than that of Lewes, 
and happily subsists to this day. William Boulting, 
the distinguished authority on mediaeval and renais- 
sance Italy, was, when I first met him, a student of 



22 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

medicine at University College. He used to attend 
with his father and mother a Baptist conventicle in 
Heath Street, Hampstead, in which my family also 
held what were known as " sittings." I used to have 
long walks with Boulting at this time, and one thing 
1 can remember very well is that it was our delight 
on " sacrament " Sundays, while our elders were sacra- 
mentalizing within the walls of the chapel, to go for 
a walk on Hampstead Heath, and in that breezy atmo- 
sphere to indulge in free discussion of matters specu- 
lative, social and political. During a period of half 
a century I have never lost sight of Boulting for any 
long period, and our friendship has always remained 
unclouded. For long a medical practitioner in Hamp- 
stead, Boulting always found time for progressive 
self -culture, but it is only some twelve years ago that 
he was able to retire from practice and devote himself 
to the work of his life, the only work really congenial 
to him, viz. to his studies in Italian history, and to 
original thought in philosophy. A scrupulously exact 
and conscientious historical investigator, and an acute 
and careful philosophical thinker, I have always found 
the greatest intellectual stimulus and advantage from 
intercourse with him. May he live long to continue 
the good work 1 e has done in his own special depart- 
ment of history, and to produce the work he is capable 
of in philosophy ! Before leaving the subject I may 
mention, as illustrating the conscientious thorough- 
ness of Boulting's historical work, that the ItaUan 
history published in one thick volume by Messrs. 
Routledge and Sons as an edition of Sismondi's 
" Italian Republics " is really a work of independent 
research. The editor, having found so much needing 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 28 

correction and alteration in its proportions to bring 
the original work of Sismondi up to date, decided to 
treat it in the manner of Wallenstein's war-steed, of 
which we are told " the head, neck, legs, and greater 
part of the body have been renewed ; all the rest is 
the real horse." There is one thing I always admire 
and envy in Boulting's work, and that is the faculty 
it shows for exact and careful research. 

I have spoken above, in dealing with the early period 
of my childhood, of how, in spite of the mid-Victorian 
common sense, as embodied in my elders, I was imbued 
with the naive primitive belief of early man in the 
supernatural, as it is termed. About the age of 
eight or nine, it only required a very little sugges- 
tion to make me go to bed in abject fear of the appear- 
ance of a ghost, the devil, or some other unpleasant 
supernatural figure, out of the darkness by the bedside. 
Once I remember rousing the household by my screams, 
on being woke up by the squalling of cats immediately 
outside the window, believing the room to be full of 
hobgoblins. This state of mind was also stimulated 
by nightmares. I can well recall the peculiar horror 
of one of these, in which I saw seven gibbets on which 
were hanging seven beings howling. These seven 
beings were either seven great gaunt cats or seven 
thin, wizened, hideous old women — which, I could not 
tell. This dread of the dark and supernatural was, 
I suppose, common to the children of two or three 
generations ago, and was not infrequent with those 
of the time I am speaking of. With the modern child 
I imagine it hardly exists any more. A noteworthy 
point in connexion with it is, that this sense of the 
supernatural, which was the groundwork of the fear, 



24 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in some cases survived sporadically and on rare occa- 
sions into earlier adult life. This has been confirmed 
by two or three friends of my generation. If I re- 
member rightly, Goethe also has somewhere alluded 
to this feeling and its gradual cessation with advancing 
years, in his own life. The last instance of it in my 
case was soon after I was married to my first wife, 
when I was in the early twenties. We were looking 
for a house, and had seen one which seemed not un- 
suitable at West Croydon. There was nothing par- 
ticular about the house, which was a comparatively 
small double-fronted one, with a good-sized walled 
garden, and dating probably from about the end of 
the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The 
taking of the house was noted as worthy of considera- 
tion, and it being somewhat late in the afternoon, we 
went home. But that same evening in the bedroom, 
the matter coming up again for discussion, my wife 
made the remark, " I don't know why it is, but some- 
how or other I feel there is something uncanny about 
the house. I can't help fancying that at this moment " 
— it being then about ten o'clock — " goblins might be 
holding their revels in that front room." " Very 
odd," I remarked ; "I had 51 precisely similar feeling 
myself this afternoon on leaving that house ! " I 
give this as it was a singular coincidence — a house 
not specially noteworthy in itself having excited similar 
fancies in two different persons at the same time. 
This was the last occasion on which I can remember 
having experienced a survival of the old childish feel- 
ing of the presence of the supernatural. In later life, 
as Goethe also has remarked, if I am not mistaken, 
in the passage above referred to in the " Wahrheit 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25 

und Dichtung," it is difficult even to recall what this 
old childish feeling was like. 

With regard to the new quasi-scientific form assumed 
by the idea of the supernatural, supernormal, or occult 
(as one may choose to call it), as embodied in the 
labours and investigations of the " Society for Psychical 
Research," I am not entitled to offer a decided opinion, 
since I have not gone into the matter with any serious 
purpose. The reason for this is that I have always 
doubted, with regard to some of the chief subjects 
occupying the attention of this body, whether the 
probabilities of the case are sufficient to make it worth 
while to spend time and energy in investigating the 
subject. This of course, I know, is the commonplace 
opinion probably of the majority of educated man- 
kind, but I hardly think the published results of the 
Society's work are sufficient, up to date, decisively to 
rebut it. In addition to this, there is a positive side 
to the matter, apart from the negative one of waste 
of time and energy, and that is the apparent tendency 
of such researches to deteriorate and debilitate the 
intellect. How often do we find men of fair average 
intelligence and strength of understanding who, be- 
ginning these " occult " studies in a perfectly reason- 
able and scientific spirit, after a time degenerate into 
credulous cranks. At the same time, as regards the 
Psychical Research Society, I would not deny that 
in certain departments of their investigations they 
have achieved some results. Notably is this the case 
in the matter of thought-transference. Here, they 
seem to have succeeded in establishing by their evi- 
dence, to say the least, a certain justification for the 
assumption of the possible interaction of individual 



26 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

minds directly and apart from the ordinary sense- 
channels. As concerns other departments of their 
studies touching the supernormal in its more strict 
sense, my own attitude, and it is shared, I think, by 
a good many persons of intelligence in the present 
day, might be described as an " agnostic " one, with 
a bias in favour of the negative opinion. 

The dogmatism, in these matters, of the early and 
mid- Victorian man of education is now generally 
admitted to be scientifically indefensible, however 
much we may regard the balance of probabilities as 
being against the affirmative side. Speaking personally, 
my rationalistic conscience (using the word " ration- 
alistic " in its traditional sense) sustains a far greater 
strain from the ordinary events of so-called " chance " 
in the world, by which, in defiance of all probabilities, 
as we generally understand them, one man is peren- 
nially lucky in the affairs of life, while the other (who 
probably belongs to a larger class) is perennially un- 
lucky. It would seem as though what we call " chance," 
in events where human interests are involved, has 
as its peculiar characteristic the being a respecter of 
persons, rather than, as in theory it ought, allowing its 
rain to descend equally "on the just and the unjust." 
In other words, events of this kind might seem to give 
the occultist a colourable pretence for his belief in the 
interference of supernormal or infra-normal (as one 
likes to regard it) intelligences or wills in the course 
of human affairs.^ These commonplace and everyday 

I For instance, as illustrating the apparent impish design in 
chance, there is the well-known phenomenon of the successful 
lottery ticket — the almost invariable coincidence that if the 
ticket be lost, destroyed, or otherwise become unavailable, it 
unfailingly wins the first prize. 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27 

events of luck and ill-luck pursuing particular indi- 
viduals respectively, certainly seem to me, as far as 
they go, to tend more to weaken the rationalistic way 
of looking at things than the alleged " phenomena " 
(exceptional in any case) which interest Spiritists 
and Psychical Researchers. The special interest in 
these studies has its origin, of course, in the desire 
to arrive at an affirmative solution, on rational grounds, 
of the problem of the survival of personal identity 
and consciousness after death. I may mention here, 
in passing, the remark of a friend of mine who has 
dabbled considerably in Psychical Research, but who, 
unlike many others, has kept his mental balance, 
that none of the accredited evidence he had had before 
him afforded, in his opinion, any valid grounds for 
the assumption of the action of intelligences other than 
those " incarnated " ones concerned in the different 
experiments. 

When about the age of fifteen my interest in music 
acquired a strong ascendancy over me. I began to 
study seriously musical theory with a view to devoting 
myself to composition. Although I broke off from 
time to time, I more than once resumed my endeavours 
in this direction, until subsequently I came to the 
conclusion that my inspiration fell so much below 
my aspiration in the domain of musical creativeness 
as to discourage me from pursuing the matter further. 
It was, however, some years later that I definitively 
resolved to abandon devoting myself to music as a 
career. Meanwhile, during the years (1875-6) that 
I was in Stuttgart, I zealously attended the Conser- 
vatorium for which that town is famous. 

It was in 1870, just at the time of the outbreak of 



28 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the Franco-German War, that we left Hampstead 
for Streatham, now a suburb of Greater London, but 
at that time still retaining some few surviving traces 
of its old rurality and village character. Thrale House, 
of Johnsonian memory, was then still standing. The 
Franco-German War of this year was the first public 
event that I followed with anything like continuous 
interest. The general sentiment in England with 
regard to the struggle was strongly pro-German. 
Nothing was known at that time of the " faked " 
telegram and of the true inwardness of the policy 
of Prussia and of Bismarck. The general notion was 
that the sole explanation of the war found expression 
in the fact that it was a gambler's last stake on the 
part of Napoleon III to rehabilitate himself by a great 
victory with the army, after the results of the plebiscite, 
recently held, had given such strong evidence of his 
waning popularity in French military circles. 

The war, however, though it strongly interested me, 
was only the exordium to the drama of the Paris Com- 
mune of the following Spring, which proved a promi- 
nent landmark in my mental career. But of this more 
anon. During this winter of 1870-1 I did a consider- 
able amount of reading in well-known books of the 
time, among which I may mention Lewes's " History 
of Philosophy " and " Life of Goethe," Lecky's 
" Rationalism " and " European Morals," Bain's 
psychological works, Spencer's " First Principles " 
and Mill's " Logic." 

The beginning of February 187 1 saw the end of 
the war and the bases of an unsatisfactory future 
peace laid. But the internal condition of France, and 
especially Paris, continued disturbed. Finally, on the 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 2d 

i8th of March the insurrection broke out in Paris 
which led to the establishment of the Commune, the 
first organized Government founded in the interests 
of the working class and having for its conscious 
aim the transformation of existing civilization in the 
direction of Sociahsm. I say in the direction of 
Socialism, for, though all those who took part in 
the Commune were almost entirely Socialists by in- 
stinct, yet they were not by any means all SociaUsts 
by understanding, in the scientific sense of to-day. 
Their general aspirations were towards a society of 
economical and political equality, but beyond this 
there was great nebulosity of view. The followers of 
Proudhon were still very numerous among the educated 
French working class and their representative men. 
But all this did not alter the fact that the Commune 
was, in essence, the outcome and embodiment of the 
first great movement of the working classes towards 
Sociahsm (for the abortive insurrection of June 1848 
was too short-lived to count as such). Although at 
the time my own ideas of the aims of true social progress 
were nebulous enough, merely embracing political 
liberty and democracy together with economic equality 
in a vague and abstract way, yet I could see the signi- 
ficance of the new movement in Paris from the first. 
My interest grew as events developed and culminated 
with the horrors of the semaine sanglante. I can well 
recall the tears I shed during these days, in secret 
and in my own room, over this martyrdom of all that 
was noblest (as I conceived it) in the life of the time. 
Henceforward I became convinced that the highest 
and indeed only true religion for human beings was 
that which had for its object the devotion to the future 



80 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

social life of Humanity. The martyrs of the Commune 
who died, as one of them expressed it, pour la solidarity 
humaine, appealed to me as far nobler than any martyrs 
the Christian creed has had to show. The Communist 
believed that his end at the hands of the Versaillaise 
soldiery meant the extinction of his personality, but 
perhaps a step towards the realization of his ideal, 
and in this behef he faced death. The Christian 
martyr, on the other hand, we may presume, was sin- 
cerely convinced according to the tenets of his creed 
that his death at the hands of the executioner opened 
for his personality the gates of a paradise of never- 
ending bliss. 

These considerations, only intensified by the foul 
abuse and lies with which the bourgeois Press assailed 
the Commune and all those connected with it, made 
an ineffaceable impression upon me. The idea of 
human progress as the proper object of religion led 
me some time after this to attach myself somewhat, 
although I never formally joined it, to the Positivist 
body, the leaders of which at that time were Dr. Richard 
Congreve, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Professor Beesly, 
and Dr. Bridges. Professor Beesly having died in old 
age recently, Mr. Frederic Harrison is the only living 
survivor of this group. I was the more attracted to 
the Positivists from the fact that they were the only 
organized body of persons at that time in the country 
who had the courage systematically to defend the 
movement of which the Commune was the outcome, 
as well as the actions of the Commune and its adherents 
themselves. Exception must be made, of course, of 
the small circle that gathered round Karl Marx and 
formed the nucleus of the British Branch of the Inter- 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 81 

national Association. But the old International, not- 
withstanding its influence on the Continent, had never 
any real hold on the English intellectual or working 
classes, and it is extremely doubtful whether more 
than a few, more or less in the inner circle, fully realized 
what the Commune meant, or sympathized with its 
aims. For the rest, the other popular movements 
of the day, which centred round Charles Bradlaugh 
and the National Secular Society, were steeped in 
Manchester School economic prejudices and were 
thoroughly insular in their general outlook. As a 
consequence of this they were mostly unsympathetic 
to the French " Red Republican " party, as it was 
then the fashion to call it. The Positivists, on the 
contrary, manfully espoused the cause of the Commune 
in the Fortnightly Review, at that time edited by Mr. 
John (now Lord) Morley. The same may be said 
of the weekly journal. The Examiner, originally estab- 
lished by Albany Fonblanque, and to which in its 
early days John Stuart Mill was a regular contributor. 
It was edited, at the time of which I speak, by my 
elder contemporary and friend, the late Mr. Fox Bourne. 
The latter, although a thorough Manchester School 
man and political Radical of the Cobden-Bright type, 
was also thoroughly honest up to his lights, and re- 
spected the honesty and self-sacrifice of those who 
had suffered for their ideal in Paris, little as he might 
appreciate that ideal itself. He has informed me 
that during the period of the Commune and for some 
time after he was a frequent caller at Marx's house 
in Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, where he received 
the true account of things which were taking place, 
and after the Commune had been suppressed he met 



32 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

many of the refugees who used to visit there. It thus 
came about, as stated, that The Examiner bravely 
defended the honesty and courageous enthusiasm of 
the Commune and its adherents. 

As is well known, the following year, 1872, saw what 
was practically the wind-up of the old International 
(founded in 1864) at the Hague Congress. Its end was 
the work of Marx and his friend Engels. The latter 
stated, in a speech closing the International SociaUst • 
Congress held at Zurich in 1893, that they felt the 
situation to be becoming on the Continent too dangerous 
for the old organization to be maintained. They feared, 
he said, lest its maintenance might mean the wrecking of 
the liberty and perhaps the Hves of too many valuable 
workers for the cause under the existing conditions 
in many European countries. 

I have dwelt upon this matter of the Commune at 
some length, as it had a strong influence upon the 
whole course of my thought on things social and poUtical, 
and led ultimately to my becoming a convinced Socialist. 
At the time being, of course, it was the heroism of the 
Communards in their championing of the cause of 
the people, of the economically oppressed and down- 
trodden, that fired my youthful imagination. 

During the early years of the seventies I continued 
my studies in various directions, until in August 1875 
I went to Stuttgart, where, still with a view of devot- 
ing myself to music, especially composition, I joined 
the Conservatorium. Stuttgart was at that time 
still a quaint old town as regards its central portion, 
although a circle of new streets and buildings was 
already sufficiently in evidence on its outer fringe. 
I remained in Stuttgart for somewhat over a year, 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 33 

mixing freely with all sorts and conditions of men. 
From Stuttgart I went down South into French Swit- 
zerland, residing for two or three months in the house 
of a pasteur at the little village of La Sarraz, in the 
Canton de Vaud, not very far from Lausanne. I 
returned home to Streatham in the Autumn of the 
year 1876. A year later I married. My wife was 
the collateral descendant of John Hoole, the contem- 
porary and friend of Dr. Johnson, and the well-known 
translator of Tasso and other poets of the Italian 
Renaissance. 

With the few details given above I may appro- 
priately close the present chapter of reminiscences 
belonging to the period of childhood and youth. What 
is known as the mid- Victorian period was soon to 
lapse into the late- Victorian period. 



CHAPTER II 

MEN AND MOVEMENTS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES 

In the Summer of 1880 I received a call to Berlin 
to act as assistant correspondent to the late Dr. Carl 
Abel, who was at that time engaged as chief corre- 
spondent of the Standard. I well remember how the 
room in Dr. Abel's residence which served as office 
overlooked the study of the late Professor Droysen, 
and how from my desk the Professor was to be seen 
inditing his historical works. Bamberger, the cele- 
brated National-Liberal member of the Reichstag, 
lived in a house standing in its own garden, also nearly 
in front of us, while the well-known friend of Heine, 
Fanny Lewald, resided not far off. In the November 
of this year 1880 I went to report the festivities 
connected with the restoration of Cologne Cathedral. 
Although the completion of the twin spire was un- 
doubtedly carried out as ably as possible in accordance 
with the original plan, I, for my part, quite share 
William Morris's regrets for the unfinished condition, 
with the quaint " mediaeval crane " still remaining 
where it was left by the members of the old guild of 
masons in the sixteenth century. 
Old Gallenga, the well-known writer on the staff of 

The Times, was also in Cologne reporting the pro- 

^ 34 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 35 

ceedings. An amusing incident occurred in connexion 
with Gallenga. I was sitting next to him one day 
at luncheon in our hotel, and on the other side was 
a pompous Prussian. As, after the meal, we were 
rising from the table, our pompous Prussian addressed 
Gallenga, asking whether he were not the correspon- 
dent of The Times. Gallenga, somewhat taken aback, 
admitted that he was. " Then, sir, are you aware that 
you have grossly insulted the whole German nation ? " 
Gallenga replied that he was not conscious of having 
committed any indiscretion of the kind. " Do you 
not know then, sir," retorted the pompous Prussian, 
" that you described the assembly at the celebration 
as wearing shabby overcoats ? " As Gallenga told 
me afterwards, all that he had said was that the 
brilhant uniforms of the military made a striking 
contrast with the overcoats of the civilians, and 
that the contrast gave the latter almost a shabby 
appearance. 

An interesting personality I met in Berlin at that 
time was the late Edward von Hartmann, the author 
of a book which had an enormous run in its day and 
was translated into all the important European lan- 
guages, " Die Philosophic des Unbewussten " (The 
Philosophy of the Unconscious). Hartmann was lame 
and could not get out much. I was frequently at 
his house and had many a discussion on philosophical 
questions with him. Especially I remerhber talking 
over the possibility of a corporate social consciousness 
being in the womb of time and evolution. This idea 
was new to him, and he seemed rather at a loss as 
to his attitude towards it. He was a good amateur 
vocalist and used to sing the baritone parts in Wagner, 



36 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

especially " Wie oft in Meeres tiefstem Schlund " 
from the " Fliegender Hollander." My friendship 
with Von Hartmann at this time has always been 
a pleasant memory with me, and I only regret that 
after leaving Berlin I never saw him again. He died 
early in 1914. 

On Dr. Abel's retirement in 1881 from the correspon- 
dentship of the Standard, I left Berlin and returned 
to England, where I fixed myself for the next few 
years at Croydon. This period, that of the first half 
of the eighty decade, was an important turning-point 
in the intellectual and social life of England. It was 
in the Spring of 188 1 that Hj^ndman founded the 
"' Democratic Federation," which subsequently became 
the " Social Democratic Federation " and in later 
years " The British SociaHst Party." The Bradlaugh 
struggle with the House of Commons was a prominent 
feature of these years. Charles Bradlaugh was still 
the bete noire of the British propertied classes, who 
had the idea that he was a desperate revolutionist, 
whose subversive teaching was calculated to place 
the institution of private property in jeopardy. This 
notion was not broken down until his great debate 
with Hyndman at St. James's Hall on April 20, 1884, 
in which he appeared as the champion of the existing 
order of society and the bitter opponent of Socialism 
and of all reforms tending in the direction of Socialism. 
But it is singular to note that the change in public 
opinion as regards Bradlaugh was also symptomatic 
of a change in the attitude of British sentiment 
towards theological heterodoxy and disbelief in general. 
Bradlaugh, who was President of the " National Secular 
Society " and a militant Atheist lecturer, had for this 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 87 

reason alone hitherto been their special bogy. Now, 
on his coming down firmly on the side of the sanctity 
of the existing economic social order and of private 
property in the means of production, they willingly 
forgave, or at least condoned, his Atheism. But 
this matter of Bradlaugh was really, as already said, 
no more than a symptom of a change in the whole 
attitude of the British mind towards religion. The 
change had begun in the later sixties, and was marked 
by the growing popularity of the works of Darwin, 
Spencer, Lecky, and others, but it was only beginning, 
and, as pointed out in the last chapter. Evangelical 
dogma, church- and chapel-going, and all that that 
implies, continued to rule the roost with the vast 
majority of the middle-class population of these islands. 
During the seventies undoubtedly a further advance 
was made towards the breakdown of thi.- obscurantism, 
but it was not till the early eighties that it can be said 
to have definitively and finally collapsed. To those 
of the younger generation it is to-day inconceivable 
what the social ostracism, backbiting, and persecution 
of unpopular opinion meant in the sixties, and even, 
though to a lesser degree, in the seventies, of the last 
century. Well, as we have said, this state of things 
seemed to break down fairly completely with more or 
less suddenness between the years 1880 and 1885. 
The taking of Charles Bradlaugh, in a manner, into 
the bosom of British Respectability about the close 
of this period was only one of the straws showing 
the shift in the direction of the social current. Brad- 
laugh, it was true, had pronounced against Socialism, 
but he had not gone to the Canossa of " Respectability " 
in the matter of Atheism. In this respect British 



38 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Respectability met him more than half way. For 
the rest, the capitalist classes of this country, had they 
had any' sense, might have known years before that 
Bradlaugh's views on social and economic questions 
were not dangerous to them, from his attitude towards 
the " International Association " and the Paris Com- 
mune. It is a fact worth noting before leaving 
the subject that the effective movement for freedom 
of thought and toleration of opinion in this country 
began almost exclusively from the literary and cul- 
tured side. Freethought among the masses, as repre- 
sented by the National Secular Society, continued 
till the period in question to be regarded not merely 
as crude and coarse in its inception and expression, 
as indeed it very often was, but as socially disreputable. 
It was not till the early eighties and the prosecu- 
tion of Foote for blasphemy that the better-educated 
middle classes began to have sense and justice enough 
to see the movement from below for freedom of thought, 
commonly known as Secularism, for what it was, 
namely, the plucky effort of men of the small middle 
and working classes to emancipate themselves, up to 
their lights, from the thraldom of an encumbering 
and galling superstition, fatal to all advance in know- 
ledge and to all independent intellectual effort. Since 
the early eighties, social persecution in matters of 
opinion, whether theological or otherwise, has happily 
ceased to be a stumbling-block in the path of the 
intellectual and general progress of this country. 

In 1882 I joined the Democratic Federation, rather 
more than a year after its foundation. But before 
entering upon the history of Socialism in England, the 
beginnings of which were identified with the organi- 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 39 

zation in question, I may perhaps say a few words 
about some men whose acquaintance I made some 
little while before this. Hermann Jung was a working 
watchmaker by trade, and a French Swiss (Vaudois) 
by origin. He used to live and carry on his business 
in Charles Street, Clerkenwell, where I on several 
occasions had conversations with him. Jung was an 
extraordinary autodidact. He had lived in London 
for many years — indeed, since he was quite a young 
man. Speaking English, French, and German alike 
fluently, before long he came into close touch with 
political refugees of the '48 movement, and made the 
acquaintance of Marx and his circle. He soon got to 
be one of Marx's intimate disciples, and when the 
International Association was founded, in the Autumn 
of 1864, he took his place among the most enthusiastic 
spirits of the London section. He used to have much 
to tell of his relations with Marx, for whom he had 
the profoundest admiration. They finally quarrelled 
over the break-up of the old International. The 
reason of the difference was Jung's disapproval of the 
arbitrary and, as he considered, unfair methods adopted 
by Marx and his friend Engels at the Hague Congress 
of 1872 to get rid of the disciples of Bakunin and other 
non-Marxian and anti-Marxian elements in the body. 
The Marxists, as is well known, succeeded in over- 
riding all opposition and getting their motions carried, 
the most important of these being the transference 
of the General Council of the Association to New York. 
This meant, of course, as it was intended to mean, 
the death-blow of the old organization. The reasons 
given for the Marxists' action by Friedrich Engels, who 
was probably its chief promoter, at the Zurich Congress 



40 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

of 1893, have been stated on a former page. The 
immediate result of the steps taken at the initiation 
of Marx and his friends was the split up of the Inter- 
national into three or four fragments, each claiming to 
represent the original body. Hermann Jung, although 
theoretically as strict a Marxist as ever, sympathized 
strongly with the opposition parties and with their 
determination to tieat the resolutions of the Hague 
Congress, obtained by intrigue and unfair means, as 
he viewed the matter, as null and void. The fragments 
dragged on a precarious existence for a few years, but 
by the end of the decade of the seventies the old Inter- 
national had definitively ceased to exist. 

I first made the acquaintance of Hermann Jung 
at one of the meetings of the London Dialectical Society, 
then held in Langham Hall, .Great Portland Street. 
The lecturer was the late Mr. Leonard Montefiore, 
his subject being " German Social Democracy." He 
treated the matter from the then conventional middle- 
class point of view as a somewhat foolish aberration 
of the masses, although he strongly denounced the 
anti-Socialist coercion laws, the enactment of which 
Bismarck had jUst succeeded in procuring. The treat- 
ment of the subject in the somewhat de haut en has 
manner of the lecturer brought Jung, as soon as 
the lecture was concluded, to his feet in a fury. The 
result was one of the most effective and rousing speeches 
in defence of Sociahsm I have ever heard. There was 
no mistake about it. Hermann Jung was a born 
orator. When I knew him he seldom took part in 
public meetings, but in his younger days, when he 
was an active propagandist, he must have been extra- 
ordinarily effective and powerful. 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 41 

Poor Hermann Jung came to a sad end. Among 
the numerous persons who, claiming to be political 
refugees, always found a welcome in his workshop, 
was a French criminal who, while Jung was bending 
over his bench, struck him a blow on the head with 
some sharp instrument which killed him at once. The 
object was robbery, but his assailant, although he fled 
from the house, did not succeed in escaping, being 
caught red-handed, and in due course tried and executed. 

Another man with whom I became acquainted through 
Jung was the then Socialist and subsequent Anarchist, 
Johannes Most. At the time I first met him, at the 
end of the seventies, he had quarrelled with the leaders 
of the Social Democratic party in Germany, and was 
editing a paper of his own. Die Freiheii, in a street 
off Tottenham Court Road. Most was rather an- insig- 
nificant-looking man, but with a fund of unmistakable 
energy in him. His Socialism had been much influ- 
enced by the writings of Eugen Diihring, Professor 
of Political Economy in the Berlin University, a man 
now almost forgotten, but who at that time aspired 
to play a role as a theorist of Socialism in competition 
with Marx, and who had a considerable vogue for a 
few years among a section of the German Social Demo- 
crats, especially in Berlin. His fame now rests upon 
the polemical treatise of Friedrich Engels directed 
against him, in which his pretensions were effectually 
and finally disposed of. 

Most became notorious in England through his 
prosecution, after the slaying of the Czar Alexander II 
by the Nihilists in March 1881. In his article in the 
Freiheit; Most not only justified the " removal " of 
Alexander II in particular, or Czars in general, but 



42 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

advocated a similar treatment for the heads of all 
States " from St. Petersburg to Washington " inclusive. 
The Liberal English Government of the time, with 
the late Sir William Harcourt as Home Secretary, 
probably influenced from Berlin by the German authori- 
ties, of whom Bismarck was then the head, undertook 
a prosecution. Most, as is well known, was sentenced 
to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. 
His treatment in prison seems to have been vindictive 
and scandalous. This took place immediately after 
my return from Berlin in the Spring of 1881, and the 
last time I ever saw Most was in the dock at Bow 
Street during the police court proceedings before the 
trial at the Old Bailey. He subsequently went to 
America, where he became more than ever Anarchist 
and Terrorist in his views, and published a paper in 
this sense which again brought him into trouble, this 
time with the American governing powers. In 1907 
he died in New York. 

Another well-known though very different figure to 
whom I was introduced by Hermann Jung was Prince 
Kropotkin, whose picturesque and benevolent-looking 
head has since become familiar in many English social 
circles. At that time he had only just come over 
to England, and, indeed, had not very long escaped 
from Russia. He arrived, however, immediately from 
Geneva, where he had for some time been editing his 
paper, Le Revolte. His theoretical Anarchism furnished 
a fertile subject of controversy between us on more 
than one occasion. I well remember a long walk I 
had with him one day in the early summer of 1882 
from Croydon to Leatherhead, during which he ex- 
pounded his views on the Social Revolution and had 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 43 

much to say against Marx and other leaders of the 
main Social Democratic movement. Prince Kropotkin 
subsequently obtained distinction in this country for 
the exceptionally able popular articles on the results 
of up-to-date science which he wrote in the Nineteenth 
Century and elsewhere. He still, I believe, retains in 
its essentials his old standpoint in social and political 
matters, which he has endeavoured to illustrate in more 
than one book published since then. His industry 
and accuracy in collecting facts are undeniable, and 
especially in his work " Mutual Aid " there are some 
just and useful apergus, but I fail to see that they 
point in the direction of the theory of Social Anarchism 
I understand him still to hold. Kropotkin always 
struck me, when I conversed with him, as having a 
lingering belief in the individualist-introspective ethics 
of the ordinary bourgeois Puritanism — with the idea 
of individual self-immolation through asceticism, in 
its various modes, as having an intrinsic value in itself. 
As regards Economics, he insisted on the theory that 
concentration in industrial processes was only a passing 
phase in industrial evolution, which had reached its 
greatest intensity during the period in which steam 
was the main motive-power in production, but that 
the full development of the era of electricity would 
show a return, in a large measure, to the old small in- 
dustry of individual production, owing to the fact that, 
unlike steam-power, electricity can be split up without 
losing its efficiency. It is now more than thirty-five 
years ago since Prince Kropotkin expounded this, to 
me, novel doctrine, in the course of our peregrinations 
among the Surrey hills. The subsequent history of 
Industrial Progress has certainly falsified the prognos- 



44 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

tications suggested by the theory. The answer to it, 
indeed, is obvious, even assuming the scientific basis 
of Kropotkin's view to have been adequate, or indeed 
sustainable at all in the present day, as to which I 
am not competent to judge. "The concentration of 
manufacturing processes, with the division of labour 
involved therein, began long before the steam era — 
before, indeed, any motricity other than that more or 
less immediately produced and controlled by the hand 
of the workman was so much as thought of. Yet, 
notwithstanding this, the concentration of production 
under one roof and one direction progressively and 
steadily made headway from the second half of the 
sixteenth century onward in ever more branches of 
industry, little by little supplanting the old individual 
craftsmanship. The introduction of complex machinery 
on a large scale, and still more of steam-motricity at 
the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nine- 
teenth centuries, certainly accelerated the complete 
domination of the centralizing process in all branches 
of production, thereby inaugurating what we call the 
"Great Industry" of the industrial revolution. But 
steam-driven machinery most assuredly did not create 
the tendency by which the principle of concentration, 
with its correlative division of labour, has progressively 
superseded the individual handicraft industry ■ from 
the close of the Middle Ages onward. Hence, I say, 
even assuming the accuracy of Kropotkin's forecast 
as to the possibilities inherent in the application of 
electricity to industrial processes, by which in certain 
departments of production (for it could, of course, only 
apply to certain depaitments) a return to the methods 
of the small industry might take place, yet the same 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 45 

cause — the greater effectiveness of combined and or- 
ganized over isolated labour — which originally gave 
rise to the supplanting of handicraft methods by 
concentration of production under one roof, with division 
of its processes, must continue to operate in realizing 
the same tendency, just as it did before the intro- 
duction of steam and modern machinery. 

About this time I began seriously to study Marx's 
great work " Das Kapital," and towards the end of 
1881 I wrote a short monograph on the subject of Marx 
and his work in a monthly review called Modern Thought, 
now long since defunct. This notice, although by 
no means faultless as regards its accuracy, pleased 
Marx and Engels. Marx himself, being at the time 
too ill to write, sent me his thanks and many appre- 
ciative messages in a letter written by his daughtei 
Eleanor. The great founder of the theoretic basis 
of modern scientific socialist economy lived for more 
than a year after this incident, but he was away for 
his health during a considerable portion of the time, 
and I never met him. The circumstance of the article 
referred to, however, led to an invitation a short time 
after Marx's death in March 1883 from Friedrich Engels 
to visit him, a visit which began an acquaintance and 
friendship lasting till his own death in 1895. 

Friedrich Engels I consider to be one of the most 
remarkable men of his time — a man of encyclopaedic 
reading and of considerable up-to-date knowledge in 
all branches of science — anything that Engels had to 
say or to write always had its points and was worth 
consideration, even in subjects of which he was not 
complete master, as he was of Political Economy. 
iPut Engels had his limitations intellectually. For one 



46 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

thing, he was somewhat hide-bound to the shibboleths 
of the old dogmatic materialism. He, like Marx, 
had sprung from the left wing of the old Hegelian 
school, of which Ludwig Feuerbach was the most 
popular literary exponent. This school, while retaining 
the Hegelian Logic or Dialectic, strenuously repudiated 
Metaphysics and all interest in the problem of 
Metaph5^sics. The reaction against the Idealism of 
the main current of German philosophy, as the latter 
existed to wellnigh the end of the earlier half of the 
nineteenth century, led, as might have been expected, 
to the assertion of a somewhat crude and dogmatic 
materialism. This was very noticeable in Marx and 
Engels. In their case, it received a special colouring 
from their economic and historical studies. Its best- 
known result was the so-called " Materialist theory 
of history." This meant the reduction of all the 
changes in the development of human society to eco- 
nomic terms. It meant, that is, that all political, moral, 
aesthetic, religious, intellectual evolution is to be 
regarded as the reflex merely of economic change, by 
which is understood change in the mode of the pro- 
duction of wealth or of the distribution of wealth — 
in other words, of the manner in which the material 
modes of existence of the community are determined. 
According to the old theory, the dominant factor in 
the life of any age or people was always its speculative 
or religious beliefs. This theory may now be fairly 
regarded as exploded. It is to the everlasting credit 
of Marx and Engels to have pointed out the impor- 
tance of the material or economic basis of society in 
moulding and influencing that society's life and destinies. 
But what the Marxian school fails to recognize is 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 47 

that this one factor, important and even fundamental 
though it be, is not by itself necessarily the sole 
determining cause in social evolution. Moral, intel- 
lectual, and other non-material factors also play their 
part, and it may be quite as important a part, in deter- 
mining the current of human affairs. In one age and 
under one set of circumstances, the economic factor 
may play the leading role ; in another age and under 
another set of circumstances, a religious, moral, or 
political belief or conviction may occupy the leading 
place and economic conditions a comparatively secon- 
dary one. In one or two articles written quite at the 
end of his life and published after his death, Engels 
himself would seem to have to some extent recognized 
the inadequacy of what is regarded as the orthodox 
Marxist position. But Engels, as I knew him, held to 
the theory in all its one-sidedness. Speaking generally, 
Engels showed a tendency to regard all other studies 
and departments of knowledge, so to say, as appendices 
of his own special department, i.e. Political Economy. 
I have often noticed this when conversing with him. 
I suppose we must regard it as the necessary drawback 
of the specialist, this tendency to regard everything 
else as subordinate to his speciaHsm, For instance, 
if you spoke with Engels on some purely philo- 
sophical or psychological problem, he could only envisage 
it as the expression of some social antagonism, or as 
the point of view of some special economic class, at 
some special moment of its development — it might be 
the decaying feudal class, or the rising capitalist class, 
or what not. He could not, it seemed, see that the 
problem had an intrinsic quality, meaning, and interest 
of its own and in itself. The whole historical course 



48 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

of speculative thought was to be interpreted eco- 
nomically as the varying expression of class aspiration 
or antagonism. I remember one day, when discussing 
with him the materialist doctrine of history, challeng- 
ing him to deduce the appearance, in the Roman 
Empire of the second century, of the Gnostic sects, 
and the success of many of them for a time among 
the populations of the larger cities of the Mediterranean 
basin, from the economic conditions of the Roman 
world at the time. He admitted he could not do this, 
but suggested that by tracing the matter further back 
you might arrive at some economic explanation of 
what he granted was an interesting side-problem of 
history. What he meant by this retrospective inter- 
pretation I am unable to say, for the conversation 
was interrupted by the arrival of visitors and was not 
resumed. 

Marx and Engels, as is well known, were always 
recognized as a sort of court of ultimate appeal by 
the Social Democratic party, in spite of the fact that 
on one occasion, that of the negotiations with the 
Lassalleans before the Erfurt Congress, their views 
were overridden by the actual leaders of the party in 
Germany, Bebel and Liebknecht, But this was quite 
exceptional, and I believe, indeed, the only case of such 
a thing occurring. As a general rule, Marx and Engels 
were final arbiters in questions of party poHcy. After 
Marx's death this role became naturally concentrated 
in the person of Engels. Though prepared to give 
due weight to the practical exigencies of the situation 
on all occasions, the old colleague and survivor of 
Marx till the last held to the view that the social revo- 
lution could not be inaugurated otherwise than by 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 49 

the methods of forcible insurrection — least of all in 
Germany. I have more than once heard him say that 
as soon as one man in three, i.e. one-third, of the German 
army actually in service could be relied on by the party 
leaders, revolutionary action ought to be taken. Engels 
would certainly not have recognized the Socialism (?) 
of Scheidemann, Siidekum, Noske, and the rest of the 
present " Revisionist " crew constituting the actual 
majority of the party representation in the Reichstag 
as anything else than reaction in its worst form. 

The earlier career of Engels was interesting in many 
ways. Born at Barmen, in Rhenish Prussia, in 1820, 
after completing his studies at the University of BerUn 
he was sent over to England to Manchester, to look 
after a cotton-spinning business in which his father, 
who was a man of some means, had a share. It was 
here that his interest in Social problems received its 
most powerful stimulus, from the conditions in the 
housing and life of the labouring class which he found 
prevaihng there. His investigations resulted in the 
production of his first work, " Die Lage der arbeitenden 
Klassen in England " (The Position of the Working 
Classes in England) . From this residence in Manchester, 
dating from when he was quite a young man, Engels 
acquired a thorough acquaintance with English life, 
manners, and thought. He had some interesting ex- 
periences to relate concerning EngHsh society and ways 
during the first half of the nineteenth century — 
the time, as he was wont to express it, before salad 
oil appeared on English dinner-tables. He related 
to me how, smoking at that time being regarded as 
more or less " bad form " in society, he was on one 
occasion requested by the master of the house where 

4 



50 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

he was dining, who, notwithstanding the shocked pro- 
prieties of his daughters, was addicted to his pipe 
after dinner, to join him for the purpose of a tranquil 
smoke in the kitchen ! — and this was a well-to-do 
Manchester manufacturer who lived in a good house ! 
Again, he had reminiscences of port and sherry as the 
only wine drunk by or known to the average English- 
man. This fact was humorously illustrated by the 
contemporary translation into English of the opening 
line of Leporello's drinking song in " Don Giovanni " as 
" Come, let us be merry with port and with sherry " — 
the idea of being merry with any other wine, save 
perhaps with the rare and costly exception of cham- 
pagne, being inconceivable to the English mind of 
the period. He had a story also of how he, wearing 
a beard, at that time regarded as a great eccentricity, 
being worn by few Englishmen, when he went out for 
a stroll on Sunday morning would meet occasionally 
a fellow bearded man, who would greet him with some- 
thing like a religious fervour, and perhaps anon another. 
These bearded eccentricities were the surviving fol- 
lowers of the notorious Johanna Southcott, who affirmed 
that she would be delivered of a supernatural being, 
Shiloh, on the 19th of October 1814, but who died of 
dropsy a few days after instead. Her followers, who 
were said to have originally numbered one hundred 
thousand, did not become extinct before the middle of 
the nineteenth century. They regarded the wearing of 
the beard as a sign of the elect. As illustrating the 
universality of church- and chapel-going on a Sunday 
in the England of the forties and fifties of the last 
century, Engels told of a conversation which took 
place at the house of one of his Manchester acquaint- 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 51 

ances during a midday dinner (they did not call it 
luncheon in those days in middle-class circles) to which 
he was invited one Sunday. The talk, as was then 
inevitable, turned on the morning's preachers, and 
Engels, on being asked what " place of worship " he 
attended, replied that he always took a walk in the 
countrj^ on Sunday morning, that being, he found, the 
best way of spending the early hours of his leisure day. 
On hearing this, his host addressed him with the remark, 
" You seem to hold peculiar religious views, Mr. Engels 
— somewhat Socinian, I think ! " The observation is 
amusingly significant of the notions prevalent at that 
period, when " somewhat Socinian " was about the 
extreme limit of theological heterodoxy conceivable 
to the respectable middle-class mind. The notion of 
the devout Atheist Engels being " somewhat Socinian " 
is also very funny. 

It is noteworthy that Friedrich Engels, notwith- 
standing his long residence in England and acquaint- 
ance with the English people, never in himself became 
completely anglicized. He always retained to the 
last his German individuality. It is singular too that 
Engels, with all his versatility and literary capacity, 
never produced any great independent literary work. 
His writings mainly consisted of articles, with occasional 
longer essa3'^s, the most important of which have been 
collected and published in German under the auspices 
of Bernstein, Kautzky, and Mehring. His independent 
publications during his lifetime were mostly of the 
nature of expanded brochures. Such was " The Posi- 
tion of the Working Classes in England." His greatest 
literary achievement was undoubtedly his work against 
Diihring. But here again we have no more than an 



52 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

expanded polemical essay. This is much to be re- 
gretted. Had Engels undertaken to embody his wide 
knowledge and often extremely keen intellectual in- 
sight in a substantive and systematic form, he would 
undoubtedly have produced something of real and 
permanent value for the SociaUst thought not merely 
of the present time but of the future. As it is, the 
form which his writings took suggests a danger of their 
more or less falling into oblivion within a generation 
or two from the time of his death. 

Like other men of considerable intellectual capacity, 
Friedrich Engels had very markedly the proverbial 
" defects of his quaUties." Together with his friend 
Marx, and hke other Socialist leaders I could name, 
he was a thoroughly bad judge of men. Moreover, 
he was absurdly jealous of any one he did not know 
himself entering into any close personal relations 
of friendship with Marx. An apt illustration of this 
is afforded by the case of my friend H. M. Hyndman. 
Hyndman had become acquainted with Marx, and the 
acquaintanceship had ripened into a cordial friendship. 
It would appear (I take Engels' own version of the 
matter as the basis of my remarks) as though Engels 
had no sooner perceived that Hyndman had made an 
impression on Marx, than he sought to undermine 
the friendly relations between the two men. The 
pretext, for I am afraid we must regard it only as a 
pretext, was found in the fact that Hyndman early 
in 1882 had pubHshed a Httle book entitled " England 
for All," in which he put, in a popular and very brief 
form, the main economic positions of modern Socialism, 
derived of course from Marx, but without mentioning 
their source by name. In this it should be understood 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 58 

Hyndman did not pretend to claim them for his own, 
but admitted that he was indebted for them to an 
eminent foreign Economist. His reason for not re- 
ferring directly to Marx at that moment was, I under- 
stand, that the intimation of their having been made 
if not " in Germany," at least by a Jew of German 
birth, might prejudice their reception, new and un- 
familiar as they were, in this country of insular pre- 
judices. Be this as it may, the omission of Marx's 
name afforded the excuse for Engels to persuade Marx 
that Hyndman's friendship covered a designing intent 
to suck Marx's brains and obtain the credit in English- 
speaking countries for the results of Marx's work. Marx 
at first excused Hyndman to Engels on the ground 
that the book was written specially for certain London 
Radical clubs and he believed was not in general cir- 
culation. Thereupon Engels orders the brochure from 
his bookseller, and a few days after proceeds trium- 
phantly to Maitland Park, holding it aloft and shaking 
it as he advances to meet Marx. Marx yielded to 
Engels' blandishments. Result, a " coolness " which 
practically ended the relations between Marx and 
Hyndman. 

Another instance of Engels' womanish prejudice 
against a man to whom he had taken a dislike, based 
on preposterously inadequate grounds, is afforded by 
his attitude towards that excellent Socialist, Adolphe 
Smith. The origin of this antipathy, as stated by 
Engels himself, almost passes belief in its absurdity. 
Adolphe Smith, as is well known, took part in the Com- 
mune. On his arrival in London, after his escape 
from Paris early in June 187 1, he started a series of 
lectures in defence of the Commune, and, as was only 



54 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

to be expected — considering the attitude of the Press 
and the ferocity of the hatred worked up among the 
British bourgeoisie against the Commune and all who 
defended it — these lectures, although exciting some 
interest at first, soon ceased to pay their way, and had 
to be discontinued, with a loss to Smith, a compara- 
tively poor man, of time and money. Among the 
known sympathizers with the cause to whom an an- 
nouncement of the lectures was sent were Marx and 
Engels, who duly attended them on more than one 
occasion. Engels himself admitted Smith's defence 
of the Commune to have been satisfactory. But it 
so happened that shortly after the cessation of the 
lectures Smith was one of the signatories to a protest 
against the somewhat high-handed action of the Marxian 
party on the central committee of the International. 
This protest, in which there were certain, what we 
should call now Anarchistic elements, involved, con- 
tained expressions which Smith in his maturer years 
has allowed were crude and ill-conceived. He also 
admits his having signed the manifesto at all to have 
been dictated by youthful enthusiasm, genuine but 
not overwise. Now, Adolphe Smith's participation 
in the document in question was a thing Engels never 
forgave the unfortunate Smith. It rankled in his mind 
for a quarter of a century, until the day of his death. 
But this was not all. On the basis of his resentment 
Engels built up the following preposterous hypothesis, 
which he retailed as fact. Smith, as we have seen, 
had sent himself and Marx a syllabus of his lectures 
requesting their attendance and recommendation to 
friends. The lectures proved a financial failure. Smith, 
according to Engels, regarded their failure as being 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 55 

due to lack of interest shown by himself, Marx, and 
their friends in the enterprise. Thereupon, vowing 
vengeance in his wrath, the malignant Smith, as Engels 
declared, drew up and circulated the wicked mani- 
festo attacking the Marxian policy ! Hinc illce lacrymee ! 
Such was the absurdly malevolent construction Engels 
chose to put upon two utterly disconnected facts. 
Any one who knows Adolphe Smith must recognize, 
of course, how entirely impossible is the assumption 
of Engels and how utterly inconsistent it is with the 
character of the man in question. Adolphe Smith, it 
should be observed, is one who .e record for unostenta- 
tious and ungrudging work for the Socialist movement 
has been exceeded by few. Other men have got at 
least a certain amount of kudos and public recogrition 
for their work. Adolphe Smith's work has been mostly 
of a kind unrecognized by the general public. So 
bitter was Engels' animosity, that on one occasion 
towards the end of his life, when Smith had been per- 
suaded by some mutual friends to join them in a call 
on Engels, the latter could not restrain himself in his 
own house from the most ill-mannered conduct towards 
the man he so bitterly and unreasonably hated. 

Another instance on the other side of Engels' utter 
incapacity to judge men was his vehement champion- 
ship of Dr. Edward Aveling, the husband (in free 
marriage) of Eleanor, the daughter of his friend Marx. 
No amount of evidence of Aveling 's delinquencies in 
money matteis, or of the untrustworthiness and com- 
plete unreliability of his character generally as a man, 
would induce Engels to cease placing his trust in him. 
What was worse, he was continually trying to foist 
him as a leader upon the English Socialist and Labour 



56 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

movement. His sincerity in this, as in the rest of his 
actions, is undoubted, but is one more illustration of 
the very serious defects of his qualities in this, in many 
respects, great man. 

In giving the foregoing incidents tending to show 
the unpleasant sides of Friedrich Engels, I am not 
actuated by any mere love of scandal, but by the fact 
that the incidents narrated have not been without 
influence on the International Socialist movement. 
Engels' fierce dislike of Hyndman, for instance, did 
not end with his achievement of causing a breach 
between Hyndman and Marx, but continued to work 
its evil influence after Marx's death in exciting a distrust 
and prejudice against Hyndman among the best of the 
" old guard " of the German Social Democratic party, 
such as Liebknecht, Bebel, Singer, Kautzky, and others; 
and although the ill-feeling was got over in some cases, 
notably that of old Liebknecht, who subsequently 
became on very friendly terms with Hyndman, yet 
for a long time it distinctly caused a certain strain in 
the relations between the old German party of twenty 
or thirty years ago and the only English party really 
representing Marxian Socialism, i.e. the Social Demo- 
cratic Federation. 

Similarly with Adolphe Smith. Although, owing to 
the relative positions of the two men in English Social- 
ism, its effect was not so obvious in his case, it never- 
theless gave rise to most unjust suspicions against 
one of the worthiest and most disinterested members 
of the English party. Yet again, Engels' exaltation 
of Aveling and his representing of him as a leading 
figure in the British Socialist party, which he never 
was, often gave occasion, in its turn, to an entirely 



MEN AND MOVEMENTS 57 

false estimate on the Continent of the situation in the 
British movement. These things being so, I hold 
it well that the above unpleasant facts, although in 
themselves of a purely personal nature, should be 
placed on record for the benefit of the future historian, 
when he may come to deal with the international side 
of Socialism as it stood during the last two decades 
of the nineteenth century. 



CHAPTER III 

IRY-END LITERATURE. ART, AND 
PHILOSOPHY 



The expression /« de siecle, which sprang up originally, 
if I remember rightly, in the early eighties, became 
very popular as the century more nearly approached 
its close. It had, indeed, an actual significance. As 
already observed in a previous chapter, the early 
eighties did undoubtedly mark the culmination of a 
great change in English popular thought. Perhaps 
the year 1884 may be specially mentioned in this con- 
nexion. It was in this year that the modern English 
Socialist movement really began to take root and excite 
interest in the country. With this, however, I propose 
to deal at length in another chapter. But in other 
ways also the advent of the mind of a new genera- 
tion showed itself about this time. The old English 
Puritanism ceased to concern itself primarily with 
theological dogma, but turned its principal attention 
to practical issues and questions of conduct. Its 
view of moral problems of course centred in the 
old bourgeois Puritan notions. The circumference 
of morality still mainly circled round the question of 
sex relations : sexual abstention under the name of 

" Social Purity " bulked largely, as it has always done 

58 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 59 

with this type of mind, as the great moral achievement. 
The late W. T, Stead was its chief literai'y and jour- 
nalistic coryphaeus, and the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes 
its prophet and priest in pulpit and on platform. The 
movement was also mixed up with Feminism, with 
which I intend also to deal in a later chapter. 

Now was the time of the great Browning " boom." 
Browning clubs sprang up in all cultured middle-class 
circles. Robert Browning was proclaimed as the poet of 
the age, and the study of his poems was declared by 
many enthusiasts as a liberal education in itself. Alto- 
gether, in the years of these early eighties it became 
clear that the culture, using the word in its widest 
sense, of mid- Victorian England had lost its savour 
and survived its influence. The late-Victorian period 
which ushered in the twentieth century was already 
in full swing. The contrast between the new culture, 
as we may term it, and that of the so-called early- 
Victorian period of the forties and fifties, became 
very marked indeed. Dickens, to take an example 
from fictional literature, began to get distinctly old- 
fashioned as the society of his heyday died off. Even 
his sarcasms and delineations of character in some 
cases lo. t their force. Notably is this true of his 
religious impostors, his Tartuffes. Take for instance 
" Stiggins." Now, Stiggins had become already an 
impossible caricature long before the end of the last 
century. The Stigginses of that time, as of our own 
day, did not as a class, while preaching teetotalism, 
perpetually get drunk on rum-punch or anything else. 
Such crude form of hypocrisy, if it ever existed out- 
side the caricatures of a novelist, had long since died 
out. The hypocrisy of this later period may be 



60 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

intrinsically no better than that of the " Stiggins " of 
" Pickwick " ; on the contrary, it is worse, in so far as 
it is far more subtle and hence more dangerous. A 
pious " shepherd " like our old friend " Stiggins " is 
after all very easily found out, and when found out, 
his reputation inevitably collapses. Nobody would 
take up his defence. Things are different now. The 
pious Nonconformist preacher of our own day and 
the recent past still preaches abstinence, alcoholic and 
sexual, aw/t-gambUng, and anti many other things, 
only not, of course, anti-moneymaking by the approved 
methods of capitalistic exploitation. The type of the 
modern Stiggins, the modern Tartuffe, is rather to be 
found in the Nonconformist divine who declaims 
against all the above sins in the pulpit and on the 
platform, and whose sincerity " moults no feather " 
(as Shakespeare has it) — in other words, who probably 
practises what he preaches in this respect. (At least 
there is no evidence that he does not do so.) But 
now comes the test. Our Nonconformist divine, who 
prides himself on devoutly exhorting — pillar as he is 
of the Nonconformist conscience — to bourgeois morality 
in all its hues, has influential friends connected with 
mining speculation in another continent. He acquires 
stock amounting perhaps to valuable holdings in their 
mining companies. It becomes the interest of the 
mining magnates to acquire the political control of 
the land in which their mines are situated, in order to 
obtain thereby greater freedom for the exploitation 
of mining labour. In consequence, the magnates in 
question, under cover of a patriotic cry, engineer a war 
for the conquest of the territory concerned and its 
annexation to Great Britain. What does our Non- 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 61 

conformist, pious and devout, zealous in seeking to 
save the normal non-ascetic human — non-ascetic, that 
is, in the points above referred to as the subject of 
his pulpit and platform diatribes — what does this 
gentleman (who, bien entendu, was accustomed, when he 
had everything to gain and nothing to lose by it, to 
plead the cause of peace and the freedom and inde- 
pendence of small and weak nationalities) — what, I 
say, does he do when it is a question of an aggressive 
war and the conquest and annexation of a numerically 
weak people in the interest of his friends, the mining 
magnates, and the enhancement of the value of his 
own holdings in the mines ? He champions the war, 
denounces its victims, and places himself unreservedly 
on the side of the mining war agitation of his friends, 
prepared to defend all the trickery, treachery, and 
lying involved in their wantonly provocative conduct. 
This man almost certainly never in his life got drunk 
on rum-punch or on any other alcoholic stimulant. 
On the contrary, he is reported to have drunk himself 
to death on tea, as befitted a pillar of the Noncon- 
formist conscience and a leading light of total abstin- 
ence. No ; our modern Stigginses and Tartulfes know 
a trick worth two of the rum-punch business, the red 
nose, and, for that matter, of sexual gallantries or other 
like peccadilloes abhorrent to the Nonconformist con- 
science and its votaries. Class interest and financial gain 
are more in their way than personal and private sins. 
This in an illustration of how Dickens and the early- 
Victorian novelists have lost already their savour and 
are likely to become pointless for future generations. 

The question of the evolution of hypocrisy, as of 
roguery generally, is always interesting. The mediaeval 



62 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

fraudulent baker would stick a lump of clay or a stone 
in the middle of his loaf to make it weigh heavier. 
The modern fraudulent baker is better advised than to 
play such a clumsy trick. He makes his extra profit 
through cheapening his flour by adulteration, or other- 
wise lessening the cost of production, to the deterioration 
of the product. So the modern Stiggins scorns the 
methods of hypocrisy affected by his Dickensian proto- 
type. The hypocrisy he so ably cultivates bears the 
impress of calculated thought and sober reflection. 
The above is, of course, only one instance of the way 
in which the wit and wisdom even of such a classic 
humorist in fiction as Charles Dickens has worn thin 
within a couple of generations. Many more could be 
given, such, for instance, as some of the pleasantries, 
and above all the Cockney speech of Sam Weller— the 
latter, of course, as has been often noticed, having 
become to some extent pointless and its funniness 
blunted to the present generation of Englishmen. 

The like observations might be made as regards other 
novelists that delighted our fathers and mothers, and 
for that matter, ourselves also, in our early days, that 
is, those of us who are already beginning to take on 
the autumn tints of the " sere and yellow." 

In Art, the declining nineteenth century expressed 
itself in what is known as Decadence in its various forms. 
The aesthetic movement proper, of which John Ruskin 
was regarded as the protagonist, and the extreme and 
more especially decadent forms of it which were repre- 
sented by Oscar Wilde and his circle, were alike dominant 
at this time. For other decadents we have only to 
mention, in painting and designing, the names of 
Whistler and Aubrey Beardsley to recall a host of 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 68 

imitators. As for the (as we may term it) old legiti- 
mate aesthetic movement, as reaHzed in the art of 
painting and designing, it was represented during the 
period in question, first and foremost by Burne- Jones, 
for life a close friend of William Morris, and by his 
disciple, Walter Crane, who carried on the artistic 
tradition of it till his death early in the year 1915. 
On the Continent, this line of artistic conception, in 
so far as it was not merely imitation, may be deemed 
to have been embodied in the works of Arnold Bocklin, 
the Swiss painter {1827-1901). There was consider- 
able difference, no doubt, but the painting with the 
suggestion of decorative design in it which character- 
ized the English movement is unmistakably present 
in the latter artist. The influence of this art in Central 
Europe is very marked indeed. There is a peculiar 
sweep of line of a scroll-character, eminently Bocklinian, 
which meets one continually in the more recent 
decorative art of the Germanic countries. 

The cult of Decadence, as we may call it, in litera- 
ture and poetry, of which the Oscar Wilde gioup was 
the extreme wing, had a considerable vogue in the 
declining years of the nineteenth century, and traces of 
its effects may still be seen in the minds of the younger 
generation. The " Fleshly School," as it was termed, 
of Swinburne, with its offshoots, was countered by the 
" Idyllic School," as championed by Robert Buchanan, 
representing the older tradition in English poetry. 
Both were caricatured by Gilbert and Sullivan in 
" Patience." The rapid development of Decadence in 
art issued in a morbid craving for, and striving after, 
mere bizarrerie. It mattered not whether a thing were 
beautiful or ugly, provided it were sufficiently bizarre. 



64 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

This decadent tendency run mad, when transferred 
from the sphere of Hterature and art to that of morals 
and manners, resulted, as is well known, in the down- 
fall of Oscar Wilde himself. While giving fuU weight, 
however, to the decadent current in promoting un- 
natural procUvities in sex as in other matters, it must 
not be forgotten that the " Social Purity " movement 
so-called, led at that time by men like Stead and Price 
Hughes, may easily furnish the seed ground for such 
forms of erratic vice. In this connexion I cannot 
but recall what was told me by an eminent Egyptian 
judge, now holding a distinguished position on the 
mixed tribunal at Cairo. Speaking of Oriental htera- 
ture, and especially of the " Arabian Nights," he related 
to me how, in discussing the subject with a learned 
Mollah, he asked him what he thought of the gross 
licentiousness of much Mohammedan literature, and 
whether he could justify it. " Yes," replied the Mollah ; 
" you see, the true behevers, who were the authors of 
this hterature, had to do with populations in which 
unnatural sexual vice was prevalent. Now, their aim 
was to provide a counteractive by lascivious descrip- 
tions and stories which excited the passions of men in 
the right direction, turning their lusts into the normal 
channel." Whether this pronouncement of the Mollah 
was historically accurate, and such was really the high 
moral purpose of the Islamic authors of erotic Eastern 
literature, may perhaps be doubted. But anyway, the 
contention itself has something to be said for it. You 
cannot suppress natural passion. The authors of 
Eastern hterature, according to the Mollah, found a 
tendency for it to run into unnatural channels, and 
tried by their literary allurements to entice it back 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 65 

into natural ones. Conversely, promoters of the Social 
Purity campaign, in trying to cast stumbling-blocks 
moral and material in the way of the natural outlet 
of human passion, are pursuing a course which may 
well lead directly or indirectly to sexual perversion. 

In Music, the cult of Decadence, although its first 
beginning may be traced as far back as the eighties, 
has reached what one may hope is its extreme develop- 
ment only in our own day. The eccentricities of 
Richard Strauss have been outdone recently by the 
senseless bizarreries of a Schonberg, and the madness 
of an Italian apostle of mere noise. At the end of the 
last century Wagner had entered fully into the appre- 
ciation of the English musical public. Very little 
was listened to or cared for in the direction of Opera 
that was not Wagner. In classical music Brahms 
still held the field with many, but everywhere the 
Wagnerian music-drama brought full houses. Shaw 
discoursed on Wagner in the columns of the World, 
and published the substance of his articles in his little 
volume " The Complete Wagnerite." As regards 
Shaw, by the way, in connexion with Wagner — about 
the time of the first production of the " Meistersinger " 
in London, in June 1890, he called my attention to 
the curious fact that the main themes of the work 
were built up on the interval of the fourth. He and 
I were, during this period, joint musical critics of an 
evening paper. He wrote over the pseudonym " Corno 
di Bassetto," I over that of " Musigena." I had often 
occasion to be away on the Continent at this time, 
and I remember on this very occasion of the first intro- 
duction of the "Meistersinger" I had arrived home 
just in time to attend the performance, which fell to 

5 



66 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

my department. This rather disgusted Shaw, who 
felt himself unduly cut out. The result was that 
as my frequent absence from London often threw my 
side of the work on Shaw, I thought it only fair to 
resign the whole to him. He, I believe, held it for 
a little time longer and then also resigned, presumably 
finding that the columns of the World gave him enough 
scope for the expression of his views on music, and 
that the pressure of other literary work absorbed more 
and more of his time. 

In Philosophy, outside the still considerable though 
waning influence of Mill, and still more of Herbert 
Spencer, the so-called " young Hegelian " movement 
held the field. Thomas Hill Green, who died in the 
early eighties, was its protagonist at Oxford. The 
movement in question must not be regarded as a mere 
resuscitation of the philosophy of Hegel himself. It 
rather represented a rehabilitation and re-adaptation 
of the whole fundamental line of thought in German 
philosophy, which, though it ended with the old 
Hegelian school yet took its first origin from Kant. 
The movement produced a not inconsiderable philo- 
sophical literature in England and America. R. B. (now 
Lord) Haldane and his brother Dr. J. S. Haldane, 
especially the former, were zealous propagandists of 
the new departure in British philosophy. Indeed, 
perhaps the most notable production of the movement 
may be considered Lord Haldane's book, " The Pathway 
of Reality," which dates, however, from much later, 
having been published in 1903. The general position 
of this school was the leading one in English philosophy 
until weU into the present century ; afterwards, at 
least in its original form, it succumbed to the assaults 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 67 

of criticism, and its basic positions began to be chal- 
lenged by various cross-currents, perhaps the chief of 
which was the line of thought centring in Henri Bergson. 
Notwithstanding, however, its vulnerability to criticism 
in the older shapes in which it has been presented, 
the philosophical Idealism, embodied in the move- 
ment from Kant to Hegel, unquestionably contains 
a fundamental element of truth which all future philo- 
sophical speculation will have to take into account 
as basal. 

In 1882 I contributed my own quota to the dominant 
philosophical interest by my translation of Kant's 
" Prolegomena " and " Metaphysical Foundations of 
Natural Science," preceded by a short biography of 
Kant, published in Bohn's " Philosophical Library " ; 
and, three years later, by my " Handbook to the History 
of Philosophy " in the same series. The Aristotelian 
Society was founded in 1881 by a small band of inde- 
pendent students of philosophy, with the late Dr. 
Shadworth Hodgson as president. In its early years, 
as I remember it, it had not yet become so much the 
haunt of academic dignitaries, men of the chair, as 
it did at a later period. 

In History, especially the history of institutions, 
the century-end showed some remarkable achievements. 
Freeman was still writing at the beginning of the 
nineties, and he, in conjunction with J. R. Green (then 
recently deceased), and Canon Stubbs were the leading 
lights in the new views of historical research as applied 
to English history. Green's " Short History of the 
English People," which originally appeared in 1874, 
achieved enormous success, and was read by every 
Englishman and Englishwoman with any pretence to 



68 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

education during the last two decades of the nine- 
teenth century. " Stubbs' Constitutional History," 
though appealing to a more restricted class, had an 
almost equal success on its own lines. The most 
remarkable work in general history in this country 
produced by the declining nineteenth century may 
fairly be said to be the late Thomas Hodgkin's " Italy 
and Her Invaders," the separate appearance of the 
eight volumes of which extended from 1880 to 1899. 
Hodgkin belonged to the same school as the historians 
above mentioned, and his work undoubtedly contains 
the most complete and exhaustive history of the 
" Barbarian invasions " that has ever been written 
in any language. One rises from a perusal of Hodgkin 
with the conviction that, as regards actual historical 
fact, at least, the last word has been said on this great 
subject. Covering as it does the ground of a consider- 
able part of Gibbons' work, " Italy and Her Invaders " 
is a striking object-lesson in the advance of historical 
scholarship during the nineteenth century. 

Talking of historical scholarship, it is a curious thing 
to notice how one occasionally finds a man of undoubted 
ability and real scholarship, who will be once in a way 
caught tripping in the most elementary fashion, within 
the bounds of the special subject to which he has 
devoted perhaps the greater part of his life. Thus, I 
believe it was the late Mr. F. J. Furnivall — and if any 
one was an adept in English Elizabethan literature 
certainly he was — who, on one occasion, in a review, 
made the outrageous gaffe of criticizing a preface by 
Ben Jonson to some contemporary author as if it had 
been the production of a modern editor. A more 
recent instance, not so flagrant as this, but showing 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 69 

at least a singular ignorance or lapse of memory as 
regards a well-known historical source, came under 
my notice in connexion with the eminent classical 
scholar and authority in Roman History, Professor 
Ferrero, of Turin. Conversing on various points relating 
to the civil wars at the end of the Republic, I mentioned 
a well-known passage in Plutarch's " Life of Sylla," 
in which the story is told with considerable detail of 
a satyr or faun captured by the soldiery and brought 
to Sylla. I asked Professor Ferrero what he thought 
it meant. He, however, while hazarding the opinion 
that it possibly referred to some cretin, almost animal- 
like in appearance, such as are to be found in some 
mountainous districts, notably the Val d'Aosta, at this 
day, stated that he was quite unaware of the existence 
of the passage in question ! And yet perhaps Professor 
Ferrero knows the sources of Roman history in general 
better than any other man living. May we take this 
as showing that the greatest scholars and the greatest 
specialists may be fallible even as other men — fallible, 
too, on elementary matters concerning their own 
specialism ? 

But even more than in the domain of general his- 
torical research is the period of the declining years 
of the nineteenth century signalized by the remarkable 
work done in connexion with the early history of 
institutions, together with Comparative Mythology and 
the science of Anthropology generally. As in history, 
so here, English scholars received a vast amount of 
assistance from, and were powerfully influenced by, 
continental, and especially German, scholarship. But 
there was also much original work done by English 
writers, besides the collection of material and its pre- 



70 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

sentation as a coherent whole of theory. Asked to 
name the most striking contribution to human know- 
ledge in the departments above mentioned, I think 
there are few competent to judge who would not give 
the palm to that remarkable book " The Golden Bough " 
of Professor (now Sir James) Frazer, of Cambridge, 
of which the first edition was published in 1890, and 
new editions, each with large additions of fresh matter, 
have been constantly appearing since. This great • 
work has produced, in many respects, a revolution in 
our views of primitive society and of the early periods 
of universal history. Valuable work was also done 
by other writers, but none of quite so much originality 
as that of Frazer. ^ 

Among works dealing with anthropological studies 
from another side may be mentioned Morgan's " Ancient 
Society," which Karl Marx was one of the first to appre- 
ciate on its appearance in 1876. But it did not receive 
general recognition till the century was nearing its 
close. The works of Von Maurer and Maine, belonging 
to the period of the mid-century or a little later, formed 
the groundwork for much of the research into the 
beginnings of social history during the time of which 
we are speaking. 

As before remarked, the early eighties marked the 

• Talking of the " Golden Bough," an incident occurred quite 
recently, illustrating at once the increase of education and 
intelligence in the English working classes of the present day 
as compared with the last generation, and the wide social range 
of the celebrity attained by this famous book. A window- 
cleaner coming one morning to perform his functions, and 
seeing a copy of one of the volumes of the " Golden Bough " 
lying open on mj' study table, observed to one of the household, 
with much apparent interest, pointing to the open page, " Ah, 
that's a very remarkable book, ma'am — a very remarkable book ! " 



LITERATURE, ART, AND PHILOSOPHY 71 

climax of a great change in the intellectual life of 
England. It was then that the advent of a new gene- 
ration made itself very distinctly felt. The difference, 
for instance, between the England of the sixties and 
the England of the eighties, is immense as regards the 
relative culture of the two periods ahke in respect 
of its depth and extension. In the sixties an indepen- 
dent all-round intellectual life was strictly limited to 
a section of the academic, literary, and scientific classes, 
and even here the outlook was as a rule very narrow 
compared with what it became a couple of decades 
afterwards. The social strata affected by intellectual 
interests showed an enormous advance in the later as 
compared with the earher period. Middle-class house- 
holds, where in the sixties antimacassars, wax-flowers, 
on the walls religious texts worked in Berlin wool, 
sentimental drawing-room songs, cheap dance music or 
transcription of banal Italian opera airs lying on a 
chair beside the piano, religious books alternating with 
cheap novels in the bookcase, Martin Tupper's 
" Proverbial Philosophy," and, as the nearest approach 
to actual literature, Longfellow's poems, on the drawing- 
room table — domestic establishments such as these 
gradually disappeared in the interval between the two 
periods. The generation which came to its own in 
the eighties had acquired truer instincts and higher 
interests in art, literature, music, and the deeper prob- 
lems of life, individual and social, than its predecessors 
of the early- and mid- Victorian period The penetra- 
tion of what is known as the " higher culture " into the 
ranks of the working classes proper followed some 
years later. It is noteworthy in this connexion that the 
Socialism of the eighties and even the early nineties 



72 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

— ^i.e. the new scientific Socialism of Marx and all that 
that implied — was mainly a middle-class movement. 
The working classes, to whom in the nature of things 
the movement ought to have appealed, were largely 
apathetic and unresponsive in this 'country for a long 
time. The work of education in the new social and 
economic views was mainly done by middle-class men. 
So it was generally. The new intellectual life of the 
country began to affect the bulk of the working classes 
in England hardly before the late nineties. Progress 
has been taking place, of course, ever since, but it is 
not amiss to recall the fact that the starting-point of 
much of our subsequent advance dates from the last 
twenty years of the nineteenth century and the new 
intellectual Ufe which grew up during that time. 

In the present chapter I have only attempted to 
call attention to some of the leading features in the 
literature, art, and science of the period in question. 
The picture here outlined can be readily filled up by 
all who will. Those days do not lie long behind us 
in reality, but the strain and stress of modern life have 
had a tendency to alter our perspective of events 
and periods, and already this nineteenth century- 
end begins to wear the aspect of history, and to seem 
more remote from us than its actual distance in 
time would warrant. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 

In the late seventies and the early eighties the work- 
man's club was a strong political force in the land. 
This was especially the case as regards London, where 
there was a considerable and well-organized network 
of these clubs throughout the whole metropolis. At 
this time the workman's club movement on its political 
side was not much more than a wing of the official 
Liberal party. There was little or no pohtical initia- 
tive or influence of ideas outside the range of 
current political questions and party politics in any 
of them. The leading political workman's club in 
London was the " Eleusis Club," Chelsea, the con- 
stituency for which the late Sir Charles Dilke at that 
time sat. But there was not a district throughout 
the metropolis that did not boast of one or more of 
them, though of course they varied much in size and 
influence. Now it occurred to the, at that time, inde- 
pendent Radical, Henry Mayers Hyndman, early in 
1881, to endeavour to weld the best elements in these 
clubs into an independent and coherent political party, 
under the name of the " Democratic Federation." 
The principles on which it was to be based were un- 
pretentious enough at first glance, but Hyndman, who, 

as we have seen, had come into contact with Marx, had 

73 



74 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the foundation of a British Socialist party already in 
view. The preliminary meeting was held and the 
organization founded in the early Spring of 1881. At 
its inauguration there were some persons associated 
with it, such, for instance, as the late Butler Johnstone, 
who, as its aims became more closely defined, dropped 
out. But the organization continued, small and un- 
pretentious as it was, notwithstanding, though it 
never achieved altogether its original ostensible aim, 
namely that of uniting in one s6Ud phalanx the Radical 
workmen's clubs of the metropolis. Speaking of myself, 
I made the acquaintance of Hyndman in 1882, and 
the same year joined the " Democratic Federation." 
At this time the Irish agrarian question and the Land 
League were very much to the fore, and the new or- 
ganization was largely occupied with matters connected 
with the Irish agitation. 

The offices of the Democratic Federation were 
at 9 Palace Chambers, Westminster, opposite the 
Houses of Parliament, and here in February and 
March 1883 a series of conferences were held on certain 
pressing questions of the day, which subsequently 
became crystalhzed under the name of " stepping- 
stones " (to Socialism) in the practical programme of 
the organization. At the same time new and impor- 
tant recruits came in, who infused fresh life into the 
movement and enabled Hyndman to give it a definite 
Socialist direction. These were J. L. Joynes, who 
had just resigned his mastership at Eton ; H. H. 
Champion, the son of the late General Champion, 
an Army officer, who had given up his commission, 
disgusted with the Egyptian War of 1882 ; Harry 
Quelch, then a journeyman packer in Cannon Street ; 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 75 

John Burns, who, if I remember rightly, joined a few 
months later, and William Morris. The present writer 
also, now that the movement was becoming more 
definitively Socialist, began to take a more active 
interest in it than heretofore. During the Summer of 
1883 much propaganda work was done in the open air. 
In the late Autumn of that year I joined the executive 
committee of the Democratic Federation. About the 
same time the donation of £300 from the well-known 
poet and writer on Social subjects, Edward Carpenter, 
towards the founding of a weekly organ for the new 
body, led to arrangements being made for the starting 
of the paper Justice in January of the year 1884. 
The first editor was an Irishman, an ex-military man 
named Fitzgerald, who had been war correspondent 
for English newspapers in the Russo-Turkish campaign 
of 1877-8, and who claimed to be a great authority 
on affairs of the Near East. This good man, I may 
remark parenthetically, some ten years later seems 
to have come to a mysterious and premature end. 
Having again taken up his old metier of journalist- 
correspondent, he went out to Greece, where he married 
the daughter of the French Consul at Corinth. While 
on a journalistic tour into Thessaly and other parts 
of the Balkan peninsula, all trace of him was lost, and 
he was never heard of again. The presumption was 
that he had been murdered by Turks. Austria and 
Turkey, it may be mentioned, were always his especial 
hetes noires. To come back to Justice. Our friend 
Fitzgerald not proving the ideal editor, Hyndman 
undertook the editorship himself. We all collaborated 
in the endeavour to make the journal a success : Hynd- 
man, Joynes, Champion, the Austrian revolutionary 



7e BBMimSCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Andreas Scheu, and the present writer used to work 
regularly for it. Morris, who had by this time thrown 
himself enthusiastically into the movement, contri- 
buted his well-known poem " All for the Cause " to the 
first number, and afterwards other poems and articles. 
I well remember how, at the annual conference of the 
Democratic Federation in the Spring of the previous 
year, I successfully exercised my arts of persuasion 
in inducing Morris, whom I had recently come to know, 
to join the executive council of the new party, he 
having refused when first proposed. But of Morris I 
shall have occasion to speak more fully later. 

The Summer of 1884 showed a vastly increased 
activity in the ranks of the S.D.F. This activity took 
various forms. Besides the getting out of the paper 
Justice week by week, the publication and distribution, 
often at the corners of the streets, of leaflets and other 
propagandist literature, added to the preaching of 
Socialism in the open air, kept the leading members 
of the organization sufficiently busy. The last-men- 
tioned means of serving the cause resulted in frequent 
collisions with the police authorities on the ostensible 
ground of " obstruction." But, however, that this 
was merely the ostensible and not the real ground was 
proved by the fact that itinerant preachers of the , 
orthodox Christian sects and teetotal advocates were 
not interfered with. The obstruction of traffic only 
existed, or at least only became a public nuisance, 
where Socialist orators were concerned. This inter- 
ference at last reached such a point that in the interests 
of the right of free speech and public meetings in the 
open air, the Radical and workmen's clubs of London 
took the matter up. Things culminated in what was 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 77 

known at the time as the " Dod Street victory." 
Members of the Democratic Federation having been 
summoned for technical " obstruction " on successive 
Sunday mornings at a space in Dod Street where no 
foot or vehicular trafhc was really interfered with, it 
was decided to make a definitive stand. Accordingly, 
in conjunction with the Radical Associations and the 
workmen's clubs of the metropolis a great demon- 
stration was organized. This took place one fine Sunday 
morning, when a procession of some forty thousand 
people marched to Dod Street for the purpose of holding 
a mass meeting. Before this imposing demonstration 
the local police Jacks-in-office had to give way. The 
meeting was successfully held and addressed by all the 
well-known political Democrats of London, in addition 
to the Socialist members of the Democratic Federation. 
From that time forward the persecution of the speakers 
at Socialist meetings became less frequent. 

Towards the end of the Summer of 1884 two currents 
of opinion became manifest on the executive council 
of the Federation. The annual congress of the body 
was held in August in one of the larger meeting-rooms 
of Palace Chambers, Westminster. At this meeting 
the name Democratic Federation was changed to that 
of Social Democratic Federation. In the council 
elected on this occasion it was that the differences 
spoken of later on arose. Personal questions un- 
doubtedly played their part, but there were con- 
flicting opinions also upon matters of tactics — on the 
one side were Hyndman, Bums, Williams, Quelch, 
Fitzgerald, then acting as secretary of the body, and 
Champion, who were supposed to be anxious to sub- 
ordinate the propaganda of Socialist principle to the 



78 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

urging forward of immediate practical aims in politics 
by the ordinary political methods. Such was at least 
the view of their aims taken by Morris, Scheu, Eleanor 
Marx (the daughter of Karl Marx) , who had been elected 
on to the council at the August conference, myself, 
and others, who were desirous of pushing a purely 
Socialist propaganda without regard to the expedi- 
encies or exigencies of practical politics, and without 
wasting time (which might be better employed, it was 
thought) with the methods and aims of the political 
life of the moment. This as nearly as possible repre- 
sents, I should say, the main theoretical difference 
between the two tendencies on the executive council 
of the S.D.F. (as it was now becoming the custom to 
abbreviate the full name), which culminated in the 
" split " in the body that took place at the end of the 
year and the foundation of the Socialist League early 
in January 1885. There were of course, as before 
said, personal friction, suspicion, and mistrust, such 
as are always engendered on similar occasions. How 
unjust some of this suspicion was, the subsequent 
course of events has shown. For example, the notion 
that Hyndman ever had in him the nature of a time- 
serving politician, capable of subordinating convictions 
to the chances of a political career, seems now too 
absurd for words. Not to speak of his sacrifice of 
political success on the ordinary lines to his general 
Socialist convictions, it is in part, at least, thanks to 
his rigidly uncompromising attitude on every point 
of political and economic principle that he is not at 
the time of writing a member of the House of Commons. 
The " split " was unfortunate from many points of 
view, not only from that of the regrettable personal 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 79 

differences it engendered between individuals, and 
which it took some years to compose, but also from 
that of the Socialist cause, the progress of which it 
undoubtedly headed back for a while, although not 
so much as might have been expected. As time showed, 
the excuse or reason for the rupture, so far as its theo- 
retical grounds were concerned, was utterly inadequate. 
The divergence, in matters of tactics and political 
policy, was not nearly so wide or important as many 
of the withdrawing section imagined. Looking back 
at the events of the time, it is impossible to resist 
the conclusion that the personal element — differences of 
temperament and ways of looking at things, even where 
fundamental convictions were held in common — leading 
to the mistrust and suspicion above referred to, sus- 
picion fostered by mischief-makers, was largely at the 
back of the secession. 

The last meeting of the old council of the S.D.F., 
which finally determined the breach, and which took 
place in a room rented as offices by the body in the 
basement of Palace Chambers, Westminster, on the 
evening of the 24th of December 1884, was of a dramatic 
character. Mrs. (afterwards Lady), Burne- Jones on 
hearing Morris's description of it the next day, said it 
reminded her of one of the scenes in Turgenieff 's novel 
" Smoke," in which was depicted the coming together 
of a Russian secret political society. There was a full 
attendance of members of the council, eighteen in all, 
who sat round the centre table. The rest of the room 
was crowded with partisans of either side. All the 
members of the council made speeches in their turn, 
their points being greeted by vociferous demonstrations 
of approval and disapproval. Various incidents took 



80 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

place. The debate was on a vote of censure on Hyndman 
as regards his political attitude and conduct in con- 
nexion with the affairs of the Federation. On the vote 
being taken, the result was ten for, and eight against, 
the motion ; the names including : for the resolution — 
William Morris, Robert Banner, Andreas Sheu, Edward 
Aveling, Eleanor Marx Aveling, myself ; and against 
the resolution — H. M. Hyndman, H. H. Champion, 
J. C. Frost, John E. Williams, Henry Quelch, John 
Burns, etc. 

Though, as will be seen, the supporters of the reso- 
lution were in a slight numerical majority, nevertheless 
immediately it was passed they declared their own 
resignation from the body. This somewhat erratic 
proceeding was due to the fact that Morris objected 
to himself and his followers, %vho backed the resolution, 
remaining in the body under conditions which he felt 
would inevitably lead to a continuance of violent 
controversy and personal recrimination. The matter 
had been discussed at a meeting of the seceding section 
held the day before the council meeting. Morris, 
after strongly urging this point of view, succeeded 
in carrying it, and exacting pledges from all his sup- 
porters tp follow the course of action he proposed. 
Accordingly, the somewhat anomalous procedure was 
witnessed of the majority of a council resigning, to 
leave the organization it represented in the hands of 
the defeated minority. But the seceders, notwith- 
standing their abandonment of the original organiza- 
tion, had no intention of abandoning work for Socialism. 

The result of the secession from the S.D.F. was the 
foundation, a few days later, at the beginning of January 
1885, of the Socialist League under the auspices of 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 81 

William Morris. The manifesto of the new League, 
expounding in brief the principles of Socialism on 
which it was founded, was drawn up by William Morris 
and myself on the New Year's Eve. Offices were 
taken for the organization in the upper story of a 
building in Farringdon Road, a new paper appearing 
as the organ of the League, for the first year monthly, 
but afterwards weekly, to which, at Morris's sugges- 
tion, was given the name of The Commonweal. The 
basis of the new organization rigidly excluded any- 
thing of the nature of immediate political action, such 
as the taking part in electoral contests, whether par- 
liamentary or local. The principle of the League 
was to be, for an indefinite time at least, purely edu- 
cational, though the belief in the comparative nearness 
of a cataclysmic social revolution loomed in the back- 
ground in the minds of many. The idea implicit in 
not a few of those who belonged to the Socialist League 
was more or less that of a federation of SociaUst societies 
throughout the country, bearing some sort of analogy 
to the federated Jacobin Clubs of the French Revo- 
lution, which should educate and organize public 
opinion, especially of the working classes, so that 
when the cataclysm to which the capitalist system 
was leading up should supervene, these societies 
might be in a position to give direction to the revo- 
lutionary movement. But as things turned out, this 
total abandonment of all political and practical action 
generally on the part of the League had untoward 
consequences, to which the organization itself finally 
succumbed after an existence of some seven years. 
Nevertheless, for the first two or three years from its 
foundation the Socialist League undoubtedly did much 

6 



82 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

fruitful work in the direction of Socialist propaganda. 
Meetings were held in halls and in the open air, leaflets 
and pamphlets were published, including manifestos 
on important current events, such as the Home Rule 
question, the Soudan War, the war in Burmah, etc. 
The Commonweal, to which Morris and the present 
writer regularly contributed, also did well for the first 
two or three years. Some of Morris's poems, subse- 
quently published separately, first appeared in The 
Commonweal. A selection of his political articles, 
written at this time, might be worth republishing in 
book-form, as likely to be interesting to his many 
admirers. I continued to assist Morris in the editor- 
ship of The Commonweal till the Summer of 1888, when, 
owing to reasons which will directly be made clear, I 
resigned from the League, though without any breach 
in my personal friendship with Morris. 

Certain untoward consequences resulting, in a great 
measure, from the strictly anti-political action prin- 
ciples of the League have been already spoken of. 
These consequences were not long in showing them- 
selves, though it took some two or three years for 
them to develop to a marked extent. The attitude in 
question of the League, combined with a certain want 
of precision in the definition of its theoretical prin- 
ciples on certain sides, left the door open for the in- 
trusion of doubtful elements of an anarchistic character. 
These elements grew stronger as time went on, and 
found support in a certain side of Morris's own tem- 
perament. The result was as might have been foreseen. 
The Socialist League became impossible for those who 
wished to see it grow up into a strong party organi- 
zation for the propagation of the principles of scientific 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 88 

Socialism, and if not immediately, at least later on, 
definitely to take part in political action of some kind. 
The great bulk of those who thought thus in the League 
resigned, in this way leaving the body in the hands 
of a rump consisting of Anarchists and Semi-anarchists, 
with a few others who did not formally resign for fear 
of hurting Morris's feelings. The further history of 
the League was a record of internal disputes and failure 
to achieve anything towards the ostensible objects 
for which the organization had been founded. Morris 
struggled manfully with adversity for a time, but 
finding those associated with him impossible to work 
with from any point of view, gradually lost heart, and 
ultimately, in the Summer of 1890, himself withdrew 
from the now rapidly disintegrating section of the 
Socialist movement he had himself founded, followed 
by the few personal friends who had continued with 
him. As may be imagined, the remains of the body 
soon after this fell to pieces, the Commonweal went 
under, and the Socialist League even in name ceased 
to exist. 

Though the original secession from the Social Demo- 
cratic Federation was an unquestionable mistake, yet 
the mistake having been made, the foundation of the 
Socialist League and the work he put into it reflects 
the highest credit on Morris personally. Kudos he 
had enough already in other directions, and financially 
the maintenance of the movement and all that apper- 
tained thereto was a heavy drain upon his time and 
purse. Altogether, a more personally disinterested 
man in his public work never existed. 

There are two public incidents that occurred during 
the existence of the League which should not be passed 



84 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

over without mention. The first was the great London 
riot on the 8th of February 1886. The story of this riot 
is well known. A meeting was called for the after- 
noon of that day, a Monday, in Trafalgar Square, to 
discuss the question of " fair trade " and " sugar 
bounties." There being much unemployment at the 
time, Trafalgar Square became crowded, long before 
the hour announced for the meeting, by numbers of 
hungry, workless men who found in the event a means 
of distraction. The opportunity was taken, aUke by 
speakers of the Federation and the League, to point 
out the futility of nostrums such as the " fair trade " 
and " sugar bounties " agitation, and to urge the claims 
of Socialist reorganization as the only cure for the 
evils of the present system, with its recurrent crises, 
in which large sections of the working classes are thrown 
upon the pavement. Some of the speeches made were 
strong in their language. One of the League speakers 
delivered himself of an oration in which the words 
" lead " and " bread " appeared in antithetical juxta- 
position, in suchwise, it was alleged, as amounted to 
an incitement to violence. However this may have 
been, the promoters of the meeting, finding them- 
selves outwitted by the SociaUst agitators, peremp- 
torily closed the proceedings, which were beginning 
to become disorderly. Meanwhile, it was proposed by 
the S.D.F. speakers, to the crowd, to march through 
the West End to Hyde Park, there to hold another 
meeting on the question of unemployment. Accord- 
ingly, some eight or ten thousand persons, headed by 
H. M. Hyndman, H. H. Champion, John Burns, and 
John E. WilUams, advanced in the direction of Pall 
Mall. There rioting began, the immediate causes of 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 86 

which were variously stated, and continued along the 
route to Hyde Park. A somewhat uproarious meeting 
was held in the Park, after which the rioters dispersed 
eastwards in straggling bands, looting shops on the way. 
The affair, as might be expected, caused an enor- 
mous sensation at the time. The newspapers were 
full of it for days afterwards. There was a perfect 
panic : the " Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed " 
jumped up in a day or two from £3,000 to £75,000. 
Such was the terror of the wealthy classes at the new 
danger that they imagined threatened them ! The 
incident had its upshot in the prosecution of Hynd- 
man, Champion, Burns, and Williams on a charge of 
sedition. Resulting circumstances brought the per- 
sonalities of the League and the Federation much 
closer together than heretofore. One of the papers 
published an alleged interview with Morris in which 
he was made to blame the conduct of our S.D.F. friends 
as the cause of the riots. He promptly wrote pro- 
testing against having said anything of the kind. At 
the same time, while exonerating the S.D.F. leaders 
from all responsibility as to having had any share in 
causing the riots, he expressed the opinion that the 
latter had not been without their uses in opening the 
eyes of the middle and upper classes to the realities of 
things. The trial resulted in the acquittal of all four 
of the accused. Singularly enough, the man who 
seemed nearest to conviction on account of his alleged 
utterances was the since so moderate Liberal politician, 
John Burns. This was partly owing to the attribution 
to him by the Prosecution of a speech he had never 
made, to wit, that anent " bread " and " lead." The 
result j[of the prosecution was a distinct fiasco for the 



86 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Government, and the whole affair of the riots, from 
beginning to end, was a tremendous advertisement 
for SociaHsm, especially the S.D.F. The incident 
certainly brought home the social problem, in a manner 
which probably nothing else would have done, to the 
average mind of the middle and upper classes. The 
circumstances attending the riots also called the atten- 
tion of the working classes to the fact that Socialism 
offered a solution of the social problem. 

The second of the events referred to was the dis- 
turbances in connexion with the proclaimed meeting 
in Trafalgar Square on November 21st of the next 
year, 1887. After the riots of February 1886, during 
the panic following them, the Chief of the Police, Sir 
Edmund Henderson, resigned as having failed to cope 
with the exigencies of the situation. In his place came 
an Army man. Sir Charles Warren, whose aim evi- 
dently was to pose in the role of a Saviour of Society 
and as a person of great determination of character. 
He decreed, accordingly, the closing of Trafalgar Square 
for public meetings. The matter was brought to a 
test by the announcement, on the part of the Irish 
party, the Radicals, and the Socialists of the metro- 
polis, of a mass meeting to be held in Trafalgar Square 
on Sunday, 21st of November 1887, to discuss the 
Irish matters which were then uppermost in the general 
interest of the public. The unemployed question 
being still acute and likely to be heard of at the meeting, 
also the fact that one of the main objects of its pro- 
moters was to test the question of the right of assembly 
in Trafalgar Square, the situation was an interesting, 
not to say a threatening one. The police were in 
strong force and the military behind. As the con- 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 87 

tingents of the various Radical clubs, branches of the 
Socialist organizations, and Irish Societies of London 
debouched through the streets leading into the Square, 
they were attacked and mostly dispersed by the police. 
Many persons were injured in scuffles with the con- 
stabulary, and one man, John Linnell, was killed and 
had a public funeral the following Sunday. The whole 
affair created almost as much sensation as the riots 
of twenty months previously. I was myself away 
in Ziirich at the time. What gave a special interest 
to this event was the effect it had upon Morris's views. 
Up to this time he ,had more or less believed in the 
possible success of a revolutionary outbreak on the 
part of the populace of our great cities — a revolutionary 
outbreak in the old style of the French Revolution, 
of Paris in July 1830, or the June days of 1848. But 
Morris, who headed the contingent furnished by the 
Socialist League on this occasion, lost all his confidence 
as to the power of an unorganized or imperfectly 
organized crowd to offer an effective resistance to the 
forces of the modern State. So far at least as England 
was concerned, whether rightly or MTongly, the occur- 
rences of this day seemed to have practically settled 
the matter for him. He wrote me a letter immediately 
afterwards to this effect, telling me that he had always 
recognized the probability of any scratch body of men 
getting the worst of it in a rough-and-tumble with 
the police, not to speak of the military, yet he had 
not realized till that day how soon such a body could 
be scattered by a comparatively small but well-organized 
force. Later on, when I had come back to London, he 
vividly described to me how, singly and in twos and 
threes, his followers began for a few moments to make 



88 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

a sh6w of fight with the poUce, and how in vain he 
tried to rally them to effect a determined dash as a 
united body on their goal, namely, Trafalgar Square 
itself. The whole affair, he taid, was over in scarcely 
more than three or four minutes. This incident cer- 
tainly had a strong effect in making Morris pessimistic 
as to the success of any popular civil rising under 
existing circumstances, however just might be the 
cause in which it was undertaken. 

Before leaving the subject of the Social Democratic 
Federation and Socialist League, I may recall an 
amusing incident which occurred in connexion with 
the Croydon branch of the former body, as illustrating 
the value sometimes to be attached to a crowd's mani- 
festations of sympathy or antipathy at a meeting. 
Our Croydon friends were in the habit of holding 
Socialist meetings on fine Sunday afternoons during 
the Summer on an open space called Duppas Hill. 
Some young men of the small clerk and shopman type 
were incited by paid agents of the Tory party to inter- 
rupt speakers and disturb the meetings. This went on for 
two or three Sundays in succession, when our friends, 
who had succeeded in getting the addresses of these 
agents, bethought themselves of negotiating with 
them. Accordingly, they called upon the leader and 
offered him for the next Sunday two shillings a head 
for his men to keep order, in place of the eighteen- 
pence he admitted he had been receiving from the 
Tories to create disturbance. Result : the following 
Sunday consternation for the knot of youths of the 
small clerk and shopman type, who found their sport 
spoilt and their persons threatened by their whilom 
friends and encouragers ! During the ensuing week 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 89 

the leader of the provocative agents, who by the way 
was a professional pugilist, succeeded in inducing the 
Tories to raise their price to half-a-crown a head for 
his future services to their cause. The following 
Sunday therefore found things again as they were 
before. In view of the situation, the finances of the 
branch not admitting of its being " raised " in this 
way sixpence per head per week indefinitely, and 
also as the time of year for open-air meetings was 
nearly over, our friends decided to discontinue the 
gatherings for that season, although the pugilist leader 
intimated that he was still open to an offer from 
their side. 

The history of the S.D.F. after the collapse of the 
Socialist League need not detain us in detail. Many 
of those who had been connected with the League 
since its foundation, including myself, who had, as 
already stated, resigned from the body in 1888, after 
it became clear that the anarchistic and quasi-anar- 
chistic elements were getting the upper hand, had 
already rejoined the Social Democratic Federation 
before the League finally broke up. The original 
body now became for ' some years the only Socialist 
organization in the country. Speaking of my own 
revived connexion with it, I was soon re-elected to 
the London Executive Council, and for a short time 
in 1892 took over the editorship of Justice, which Hynd- 
man, owing to the pressure of other work, had been 
compelled to abandon. I was myself obliged to retire 
before very long, owing to the fact that family calls 
gave occasion for my absence from England at '■ this 
time for some months during the year. Henry Quelch 
was then appointed editor at a regular salary, which, 



90 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

comparatively small though it was, especially at first, 
enabled him to give up all other work and devote 
himself entirely to the paper and the organization it 
represented. The efficiency and laborious energy he 
put into his new occupations from the beginning con- 
tinued till his death in 1913, a period of over twenty 
years. The Social Democratic Federation maintained 
its activity under that name till 1911. For some time 
before this a feeling had grown up within the l^ody 
for enlarging (as it was deemed) the scope of the 
influence of the old organization. 

The Independent Labour Party, which was started 
early in 1893 as a working-class political organization 
independent of the two traditional political parties in 
the State, though at first founded on a non-Socialist 
basis, in a few years became permeated with Socialist 
ideas (albeit in many cases of a somewhat nebulous 
character), and before long openly declared itself 
Socialist. It thenceforward tended to absorb most of the 
vague floating Socialist aspiration of the country. About 
the same time as the Independent Labour Party came 
into existence, Robert Blatchford, with a small circle 
of collaborators and sympathi;iers, started his weekly 
paper. The Clarion, in which most of the main principles 
of Socialism found expression in a popular form. The 
Clarion had considerable influence throughout the 
country, societies of its supporters, calling themselves 
" Clarionets," being founded in many of the larger 
towns. But the influence alike of the Independent 
Labour Party and of the Clarion and its devotees 
was largely in the provincial centres of the Midlands 
and the North, especially the latter. In London and 
the South of England the S.D.F. still held the field. 
Now, the desire on the part of its members to acquire 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 91 

a largely increased influence in the industrial districts 
of northern and central Britain induced them to give 
ear to the promptings of Victor Grayson (the elect of 
Colne Valley in 1908) and others, to merge the S.D.F. 
in a larger national party, it being represented that 
the S.D.F. would never make appreciable further pro- 
gress under its old name, having acquired an evil 
reputation throughout the country for narrow sectar- 
ianism. This meant presumably that it was too little 
time-serving in its policy, and that its adhesion to 
Socialist principle was too strict. Be this as it may, 
a resolution to change the name of " Social Democratic 
Federation " to that of " British Socialist Party " was 
passed at the conference of the year 191 1. The result 
hardly justified the expectations which led to the 
surrender of the original name, honoured as it was 
by wellnigh a generation of hard uphill work in the 
propaganda of Socialist principles, and in the endeavour 
to make Socialism a political force in the country. 
At first a few Independent Labour men, " Clarionets," 
and some hitherto unattaiched Socialists joined the 
rechristened organization, but most of these outside 
elements soon fell away, so that the new " British 
Socialist Party " before long became, as regards 
membership, practically identical with the old " Social 
Democratic Federation," the change of name having 
had no appreciable effect one way or the other on its 
numbers or influence. The general history of the 
organization since it was reconstituted as the British 
Socialist Party belongs more to the region of current 
events than to that of reminiscences, and hence need 
not detain us here. 

The general progress of Socialist ideas in this country 
within recent years is by no means commensurable 



92 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

with the membership of any definitely organized 
Socialist body. The whole of modern Democratic 
thought is more or less permeated with Socialist ideas 
and aspirations. The administrative changes to which 
the European War has given rise have educated the 
public opinion of the working classes, on more than 
one side of elementary economic reconstruction, in a 
Socialist direction. The apparent temporary eclipse 
on the political side of the old principle of International- 
ism, the substitution even for the moment of the struggle 
of races in place of the struggle of classes, is, I am 
convinced, far more superficial and far more temporary 
than many would have us believe. In this respect 
the Great War will undoubtedly be found to have 
cut both ways. While on one side it will have tended 
to inter-racial estrangement, on another side it will 
have tended equally to effect an advance in race- 
solidarity. But it is not to be doubted that in the 
long run, and with the resumption of the class-struggle 
in its full intensity, all estrangement, all race-pre- 
judice, will before very long disappear in face of the 
rise of a new International, which the working classes 
of the civilized world, taught by the experience of the 
past, will raise to a strength and influence in the 
determining of inter-racial disputes (mainly interesting 
as they are to the dominant classes of the countries 
concerned) such as will render any renewal of the great 
race struggles of the past for ever more impossible. 
With the firm establishment and corresponding in- 
fluence of such a new International the United States 
of Europe, hitherto regarded as a Utopian dream, will 
be, if ;not at once realized, in a fair way towards 
realization. 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION 98 

As to the ideal side of Socialism, the decline in effec- 
tiveness of the old objects of religious sentiment and in 
the theoretical basis generally of what I have else- 
where termed " introspective " Ethics and Religion, 
through the universal collapse of a Uving and active 
faith in the Supernatural and its sanctions, together 
with the accompanying equally universal spread of an 
" agnostic " -^attitude of mind towards all dogmatic 
creeds based thereupon, has opened the way for the 
definite substitution of a human and social ideal, 
and of human and social sanctions, forj the old 
theological ones. The definite acceptance of Socialism, 
with all that it connotes in its ulterior consequences, 
unconsciously serves to fill a place in men's minds 
formerly occupied by the various creeds outworn. 
Thus does the conception of Human Brotherhood and 
Unity, as expressed in the old Trinity of the French 
Revolution — Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity — ac- 
quire aUke a new and definite meaning in itself and 
a fresh significance as the object of reUgious sentiment. 
The economic reconstruction which is the material 
basis of Socialism, and which is often taken to be the 
whole of SociaUsm, will, with the growth aUke in 
diffusion and in intensity of the new meaning and 
implications involved in human destiny, be seen in its 
true proportions. While the politico-economic revolu- 
tion in the organization of Society will be more than 
ever before recognized as the first and indispensable 
condition of all higher social life, whether in thought, 
in art, or in conduct, the Socialist ideal will be seen 
not to be limited to this mere politico-economic change, 
but to reach forward to something above and beyond 
any mere material transformation. 



CHAPTER V 

PERSONALITIES OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT IN 

ENGLAND 

The first place in any characterization of the individuals 
who have played a part in the Socialist movement 
in Great Britain must be given to the man who is in 
every way the founder of that movement, Henry Mayers 
Hyndman. I first became acquainted with Hyndman 
in 1882. He was then living in Devonshire Street, 
Portland Place, and was regarded generally by Liberals 
and orthodox Radicals as an eccentric political free- 
lance who was working in the Tory interests. This 
was largely owing to the fact that he had strongly 
opposed the Russophile agitation of Gladstone from 
1876 to 1878, during the crisis which led up to the Russo- 
Turkish War, and during the war itself. His pro- 
Turkish and anti- Russian views on the war had 
naturally thrown him into contact with the Tory party 
and with Beaconsfield, at that time its leader. His 
relations with Beaconsfield, Salisbury, and other Tory 
celebrities will be found given in detail in his two 
autobiographical volumes entitled respectively " The 
Record of an Adventurous Life" and " More Reminis- 
cences." Another circumstance which led with some 

enthusiastic Radicals to suspicions as to the thorough- 

94 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 95 

going character of Hyndman's democratic sentiments 
was that at the preliminary meeting at which the 
Democratic Federation was founded in the Spring of 
1881, over which he presided, he had opposed a motion 
to place the immediate abolition of the monarchy on 
the practical programme of the Federation. This 
was imagined at the time by some of those present to 
be an expression of Tory respectability and loyalty to 
the throne. It was really nothing of the kind, but 
simply due to a desire not to encumber the new 
platform with " planks " for the time being inexpedient. 
The old Dilke Republican agitation of the seventies 
had comparatively recently " petered out " from lack 
of public interest. As a matter of fact, a year or two 
later, opposition in principle to all monarchical forms 
of government was inserted with Hyndman's full 
approval as one of the objects of the organization, 
though not on its programme for immediate agitation. 
It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the Demo- 
cratic Federation was not founded at first as a Socialist 
body, but with the object of uniting the Radical and 
workmen's clubs of London, first of all on a general 
Democratic programme wide enough, if possible, to 
include them all. 

At the time I speak of, Hyndman was not merely the 
prime mover and the director of the affairs of the new 
organization founded under his auspices, but also its 
chief financier. Heavy pecuniary losses subsequently 
disabled him from continuing this assistance, but it 
lasted long enough to place the Democratic Federation 
on a sufficiently stable footing to attract important 
new recruits, among them William Morris, also a man 
of means, whose financial assistance for a year or two 



96 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

subsequently, that is, until the " split," was timely 
and valuable. 

The special characteristic of Hyndman has always 
been his perennial buoyancy of temperament. Through- 
out all his career one hardly ever found Hyndman 
downhearted. Many have laughed at the expression 
so often heard from him in the early eighties, " things 
are getting hot," an expression used at a time when 
there were Httle or no signs of revolutionary pertur- 
bation, outside the local question of Ireland, on the 
political horizon. It was all that the Socialist advocate 
could do to raise a small section of the working classes 
out of their apathy to take any interest whatever in 
their position and in the means to the attainment of 
a state of society in which they should cease to be 
mere wage drudges. But his very buoyancy of dis- 
position, which saw things moving much faster than 
they were doing in reality, undoubtedly helped to 
sustain the flagging energies of many of Hyndman's 
followers in the Federation. Indeed, some thought 
that these expressions of confidence in the rapid pro- 
gress of the elements of disruption in our capitalist 
society, as in the mental preparedness of the masses 
for social reorganization, were made with express 
calculation for the purpose of encouragement. I do 
not think, however, this, if at all, was more than partially 
the case. Hyndman's optimism was undoubtedly the 
result of his natural temperament, and a very desirable 
temperament it is for one engaged in the uphill work 
involved in the advocacy of an unpopular cause, or 
at least a cause towards which the mass of men are 
for the time being^ apathetic. The " never say die " 
attitude which takes no discouragement is certainly 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 97 

one of the most striking characteristics of the man 
Hyndman ahke in connexion with pubhc and private 
affairs. 

Hyndman 's sincere enthusiasm for the cause to which 
he has so zealously devoted his life is in nothing more 
crucially exhibited than in his conduct after the " spHt " 
had deprived the S.D.F. of Morris's financial assistance 
and of many workers on its behalf. He ranged himself 
alongside of the proletarians of the organization, not 
only in open-air speaking in the parks and elsewhere, 
but even in the selling of Socialist literature along 
Fleet Street and the Strand. This reminds me of one 
of Hyndman's traits that has often been the subject 
of jest and animadversion among the profane. I 
allude to his partiality for the frock-coat, the pot-hat, 
and the linked shirt-cuff. It was in this garb that 
he was on more than one occasion to be seen selling 
Justice in the thoroughfares named. Now, speaking 
personally, nothing would induce me to don this to 
me hideous and sordid uniform of the capitalist era. 
But then I suppose I should be termed Bohemian in 
such matters. There is, however, nothing of the 
Bohemian in the usual sense of the word about Hynd- 
man. While, therefore, it might justly be considered 
a censurable affectation on the part of myself, and of 
those of like temperament with me, on public occasions 
to deck ourselves in a costume of this description, to 
Hyndman, who, as regards ways of living, distinctly 
has his conventional side, it was natural, and he might 
well have been accused of affectation (just as was Keir 
Hardie when he drove up to the House of Commons 
in 1892 in cycling knickerbockers and cloth cap) had 
he appeared otherwise. Anyway, those Bohemians 

7 



98 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

who, like myself, are individualists in the matter of dress 
to the extent of claiming for themselves and conceding 
to every other man the social right to dress as he likes 
and as he deems suits him best, have no claim to cast 
stones at Hyndman for choosing to array himself in 
the conventional vesture of the privileged classes of 
his day and generation. While on the subject I may 
mention a couple of further illustrations of the con- 
ventionally " respectable " side of Hyndman 's attitude 
in the matter of ways and manners, Hyndman is a 
great raconteur, and has always a store of amusing 
stories on hand. Now, most great raconteurs have a 
selection of risqu6 or smoking-room stories on their 
repertoires. With Hyndman this does not seem to 
be the case. Although I have often listened to stories 
of his, many of them very good ones, yet I have rarely 
if ever heard him relate anything calculated to bring 
the proverbial blush to the proverbial maidenly cheek. 
Not that Hyndman is by any means in general a votary 
of the Nonconformist conscience. He is, and claims to 
be, simply an ordinary man of the world. It is viewing 
him as such that I note this peculiarity as interesting. 
Then, again, in the matter of drink. Hyndman is 
not an abstainer, or at least not on principle. On 
the contrary, he rather prides himself on his good 
taste in wines. Yet nevertheless he has often shown 
himself a rigid disciplinarian in the matter of tem- 
perance, especially as regards the proletarian. Always 
a man scrupulously moderate himself, he is inclined to 
be hard, many think excessively hard, not on drunken- 
ness, which of course is out of the question, but on 
anything suggesting the idea of the very shghtest 
excess in liquor in others, especially if those others 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 99 

happen to be working men. Of the above the follow- 
ing may be taken as an example. There had been 
a meeting somewhere in the Midlands one Sunday 
evening at which several members of the organization, 
including Hyndman, had taken part. They all re- 
turned to London in the same third-class saloon carriage 
on the Monday morning. Having some few hours' 
journey before them, some of the working-class members 
of the party bethought themselves to while away the 
time with a game of cards. No sooner had they 
taken their places alongside the narrow centre table 
than one of the " comrades " produced a bottle of 
whisky. Glasses and some water were procured, and 
the party proceeded to enjoy themselves. Our friend 
Hyndman, who was in another part of the carriage, 
passing along and observing the alcoholic debauch, 
could not restrain his indignation, and rebuked the 
men in well-set terms as acting in a disgraceful manner. 
Well, seeing there were some five or six persons among 
whom the bottle of whisky had to be divided in a three 
or four hours' journey, one would have thought that 
the potations per man could not be regarded in the 
light of a serious transgression. Hyndman, it would 
seem, thought otherwise. I was not present myself on 
the occasion, but have heard the story from two or three 
members of the party who strongly resented Hyndman's 
attitude. Of course, it must not be forgotten, as regards 
the story, that Hyndman has an original and quite 
peculiar aversion to the Keltic spirit above all other 
alcoholic beverages. So this may have had something 
to do with what to some may seem the extreme severity 
of his criticism on the conduct of the " comrades " on 
the occasion in question. Such are the minor merits 



100 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

or defects, according as we regard them, of our friend 
Hyndman's character. The importance of the role 
Hyndman has played as the protagonist of Socialism 
in England, and his influence generally on Labour 
politics, lends an interest even to small traits of char- 
acter that in a lesser man would be unworthy the 
attention of the recording angel. For the rest, Hynd- 
man's career alike as a politician, an expositor of, and 
agitator for. Socialism, no less than as a journalist and ■ 
writer on political and social questions in general, is 
an open book to the British public, and hence it is 
unnecessary to dilate upon it at greater length in 
these reminiscences. 

One of the men who in the early days of the Social 
Democratic Federation was most active as a speaker 
and organizer was H. H. Champion, before referred to, 
the son of the late General Champion, and himself 
an ex-artillery officer. Champion had been out in 
India, and, I believe, resigned his commission in 
consequence of his disapproval of the Egyptian War 
of 1882, commonly known as the " Bondholders' 
War." This fact alone spoke for the man and ren- 
dered him sympathetic to Democrats and Radicals. 
On leaving the Army, Champion occupied a position 
in a publishing house, and before long bought an 
interest in a printing-office, where he continued to 
work as acting partner for some years. Champion had 
a short, incisive manner with him which undoubtedly 
impressed those with whom he came in contact. He 
was also an effective speaker, partly, doubtless, owing 
to the incisive manner spoken of, with many audiences. 
At first a devoted adherent of Hyndman, he seemed 
always possessed, as Hyndman himself put it, with 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 101 

an impatience to make twelve o'clock at eleven. This 
temperament of his caused him after a few years to 
tire of the slow and more or less monotonous business 
of agitating and organizing in the interests of Socialism, 
a kind of labour for which he possessed undoubted 
abiUty. Instead of continuing the work to which he 
had set his hand, after his first enthusiasm had spent 
itself, he developed a tendency for political intrigue 
with a view, as he in all probability sincerely thought, 
of obtaining immediate results in the improvement of 
the condition of the working classes and in general 
progress. The habit of intrigue once having laid hold 
of him, the tendencies which nearly always accompany 
it were not slow in showing themselves, and issued in 
acts towards former fellow-workers and friends of a 
nature which not only destroyed old ties of intimacy, 
but which no considerations of political expediency 
or anything else could, as most of us thought, morally 
justify. Owing perhaps to early family associations, 
Champion's intrigues were mainly connected with the 
Tory party, and conducted through acquaintances of 
doubtful poHtical antecedents on the fringe of that 
party. In this way Champion became, from our point 
of view, politically completely demoralized, and the 
habit of political intrigue unfortunately, as already in- 
dicated, seemed not without a repercussion, for a time 
at least, on his general character and conduct. In 
himself Champion was by no means a bad sort. He 
had a certain brightness and charm of manner com- 
bined with a ready mother-wit which made him good 
company in whatever society he found himself. I 
can well recall how, some years after the period here 
specially referred to, Champion was the life of a party 



102 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

of English delegates to the Zurich International Socialist 
Congress of 1893, one afternoon, in an excursion to 
Kiissnacht, on the lake of Zurich. Notwithstanding 
that many of those present disliked and suspected 
him politically, all were more or less for the nonce 
under the spell of his personal magnetism. The Con- 
gress spoken of in Ziirich, in the Summer of 1893, was, 
I believe, the last occasion, in Europe at least, when 
Champion figured at any Socialist function. Shortly 
after he emigrated to Australia, where he now lives in 
Melbourne. To me Champion was always friendly, 
and of his own accord sought to renew our acquaintance 
by correspondence a few years back ; but the corre- 
spondence lapsed, owing, I imagine, to his dislike of 
my attitude in the matter of Female Suffrage and prob- 
ably on the woman question generally. For Cham- 
pion, since he has been in Australia, has apparently 
developed into a fanatical Feminist, owing perhaps, in 
part at least, to the family ties he has formed out there. 
Another man also associated with the early days of 
the Socialist movement in England was James Leigh 
Joynes, who unfortunately died prematurely of heart- 
disease, now wellnigh a quarter of a century ago. 
Joynes was a master at Eton, as was his father before 
him. Of thoroughly Democratic sympathies, Joynes 
was practically compelled to resign his mastership 
owing to the action against him taken by the late Dr. 
Hornby, who was at that time head master of the 
college, in consequence of the publication of a little 
book by Joynes on the subject of a recent visit of his 
to Ireland — the Irish question being then uppermost — 
in which he strongly took the side of the tenants against 
the landlords and championed Home Rule and the 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 108 

Land League. As a matter of fact, the whole atmo- 
sphere of Eton was uncongenial to a man of Joynes's 
views and temperament. The same remark, I beUeve, 
applies to Joynes's brother-in-law, Mr, H. S. Salt, the 
founder of the Humanitarian League, who also re- 
signed from his Eton career at about the same time 
as Joynes. On leaving Eton, Joynes came up to live in 
London and devoted himself energetically for some time 
to political work as a member of the Federation. He 
did a good deal of free-lance journalism at this time, 
writing much for Justice, besides letters to the daily 
Press. He was the author, too, of many witty verses 
dealing with social questions, while his translations 
of the poems of Freiligrath, Herwegh, and others 
belonging to the period of the '48 movement in Ger- 
many, are admirably done. In January 1884 Joynes, 
in conjunction with myself, started the magazine To-Day 
as a monthly Socialist review. The list of contributors 
for the first six numbers embraces the names of Kegan 
Paul, Paul Lafargue, William Morris, William Archer, 
H. M. Hyndman, Boyd Kinnear, Edward Carpenter, 
Michael Davitt, E. Lynn Linton, " Stepniak," Havelock 
Ellis, etc. It may be interesting to note that the first 
publication of George Bernard Shaw's, viz. " The 
Unsocial SociaUst," was run as a serial through the 
first volume of To-Day. The story, the appearance 
of which in To-Day was the first introduction of Shaw 
to the public (if we except perhaps isolated letters to 
journals), excited considerable interest, and Hyndman 
declared that in Shaw lay the makings of an English 
Heine. How far time has confirmed this opinion may 
be left to the judgment of the reader. The review 
To-Day held its own throughout the year fairly well. 



104 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

but the " split " in the SociaUst movement dealt with 
in the last chapter adversely affected it, and subse- 
quently it passed into other hands, the late Hubert 
Bland ultimately becoming its editor. It appeared 
finally in a reduced form and at a lower price as the 
International Review, dying a natural death, I believe 
at the end of the eighties. 

Joynes himself began to fail in health at the close of 
'84, and went in consequence, for change of air, to 
stop with some relations on his mother's side at Wies- 
baden. He afterwards undertook a tour in Italy, 
returning to England in the Summer of 1885 apparently 
benefited. He spent some time with me at Worthing, 
where I was at that time sta5dng, soon after his return. 
On going back to London he conceived the idea of 
studying for the medical profession and entered him- 
self at Middlesex Hospital. He continued his studies 
for a year or two, but the work was too much for him, 
and his health this time seriously broke down (he 
suffered from valvular disease of the heart), the result 
being that he had to abandon all idea of the medical 
profession and devote himself to invalidhood. Till 
now Joynes had been a strict vegetarian, but was 
induced by his medical adviser, perhaps under the 
circumstances with doubtful wisdom, henceforth to 
adopt a diet of butcher's meat. The change at least 
did him no good. Poor Joynes, it is true, lived on 
for a few years in Sussex, but as a confirmed invalid. 
He died on the 12th of February 1893 at East Grin- 
stead, beloved and regretted by all who had known 
him. 

John Burns, who had previously been active in the 
Secularist propaganda of Charles Bradlaugh, joined 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 105 

the S.D.F. early in 1884. He is, as is well known, 
one of the best mass-meeting orators the country has 
produced. For the next three or four years from '84 
onward Burns used his powers untiringly in the Social- 
ist cause. Many of us can still remember the emphasis 
with which he insisted on Socialism, on a revolutionary 
reorganization of society, as the only hope for the 
working classes. He would have nothing of those who 
pretended that Teetotalism, Malthusianism, or even 
Trade-Unionism, would suffice to effect any essential 
improvement in the lot of the working class as a class. 
" I am a Trade-Unionist," he would say, " a practical 
Malthusian, a Teetotaller, and have always been so, 
and yet I remain for all these things what I was — a 
member of the working class, subsisting on a weekly 
wage." But as time went on, in spite of the part he 
played on the occasion of the disturbances of the 8th 
of February 1886 and the 21st of November 1887 — 
for his action on which latter occasion he suffered a 
month's imprisonment — towards the end of the eighties 
Burns slacked off in his revolutionary ardour. Like 
Champion, he became afflicted with a desire to effect 
immediate results in practical politics, but, unlike 
Champion, he did not adopt a pohcy of intrigue with 
the fringe of the Tory camp. He made friends with 
certain Liberal and Radical politicians and proceeded 
to contest his native place, Battersea, as a Labour 
candidate, smiled upon by the Liberal party. His 
subsequent career is written in English political and 
labour history during the ensuing years. 

Much severe criticism has been directed on Burns 
from the Socialist side, on account of his desertion of 
the S.D.F. and of Socialist propaganda generally, for 



106 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

work on the lines of ordinary Liberalism. The criti- 
cism is doubtless well founded up to a point. Burns 
did in fact in practice, if not directly in theory, turn 
his back on the principles he had professed and the 
cause he had served for years past. It is only natural 
that his action should be resented by those who are 
convinced that the complete Socialist reorganization of 
society is the only thing seriously worth working for. 
On the other hand, I am unable to sympathize with 
the personal attacks, involving accusations of deliberate 
dishonesty, with which Burns has been assailed. For 
a Revolutionary Socialist by conviction it may be 
difficult to explain a change of front such as that of 
Burns otherwise than by the suggestion of personal 
motives of a questionable character. But let us look 
at the matter fairly. After four or five years of hard 
work at preaching the pure doctrine of Revolutionary 
Socialism, a man of Burns's energy of character sees 
little apparent result. He dwells on this aspect of 
things as it appears to him. Finally, the thought 
suggests itself. Would it not be better to let my revo- 
lutionary principles slide into the background for a 
while and throw in my lot with the ordinary Radical 
politicians by whose aid I may at least be able to effect 
some palliative reforms ? This may be a common- 
place attitude to take up, but it is undoubtedly one 
which appeals to a good many persons, and there is 
no ground, I contend, for assuming the man who adopts 
it, however much we may disagree with him, to be 
actuated necessarily by personally interested motives. 
Once in the swim of parliamentary life, we all know 
the facilis descensus effected by surroundings, includ- 
ing direct personal influences, to which most men are 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 107 

more or less amenable, in one way or another, with- 
out always themselves realizing that these influences 
are the real cause of modifications in their views and 
tendencies. 

Burns, doubtless, has his faults, like other humans, 
but as far as my acquaintance with him goes, they 
seem to be mostly on the surface. He is often accused 
of having too good an opinion of himself. But after 
all, this probably refers to a certain breezy self-con- 
fidence of manner not without bonhomie and hence not 
offensive. There is nothing " smug " about Burns, 
and " smug " conceit is after all the most intolerable 
form in which personal egotism manifests itself. As 
has been more than once remarked to me, Burns's 
entrance into the Cabinet made no difference in his 
manner. It never caused him " to put on side." As 
for mere material considerations, it must not be for- 
gotten that Burns resigned his seat in the Cabinet 
with its :^5,ooo a year on a point of scrupulousness. 
There was nothing fundamental in his views either 
past or present which would not have justified him re- 
maining in the Government, as Lloyd George and others 
did. He had never professed to be a Pacifist as some 
men count Pacifism. Neither did he find any extenu- 
ating circumstances for the Prusso-German Govern- 
ment in precipitating the war. He simply thought 
that a Labour member ought on principle to vote 
against appropriations for mihtary purposes, and also 
that the country was unprepared for war on a great 
scale, as in fact it was. After all said and done. Burns, 
unUke some others, after he once turned to parlia- 
mentary life and current politics, never pretended to 
represent Socialism while acting the part of a bourgeois 



108 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

politician. He was at least honest in this way. The 
reader must not suppose from the foregoing that there 
is not much in Burns's political, and more especially 
administrative, action that I strongly disapprove. But 
there have been so many, as I consider, unfair 
attacks and insinuations respecting Burns's personal 
character on the part of Socialists, that I have felt 
bound to enter my humble protest on the other side. 

Adolphe Smith, the expert on matters of sanitation, 
has already been alluded to in a former chapter. From 
the time when he took part in the Paris Commune 
to the present day he has always been read}'' to give 
his services in any direction to help the Socialist 
movement. 

Among the " old guard " of the S.D.F. must not 
be forgotten the Viennese comrade, Andreas Scheu. 
An able and zealous open-air orator, Scheu was a 
personality who impressed himself upon all who came 
in contact with him chiefly through his vigorous utter- 
ance and the obvious sincerity of all he said. What- 
ever view he took up, he did so whole-heartedly, but 
he was a man withal of strong personal sympathies 
and antipathies. He was a great friend of William 
Morris, who liked his bluff and trenchant way of putting 
things as well as his inexhaustible enthusiasm. 

A word must be said of the late Edward Aveling 
and Eleanor Marx Aveling, daughter of Karl Marx, 
with whom Aveling lived in relations of free marriage. 
The tragic end of Eleanor is well known. During the 
two last decades of her life she laboured unceas- 
ingly not only in the Socialist movement proper, but 
in the geneial working-class and Trade-Union move- 
ment. She it was who helped to found what is known 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 109 

as the New Unionism, being especially active in con- 
nexion with the Gas workers and General Labourers' 
Union, at the meetings of which her speeches were 
often greeted by the men with the cry of " Good old 
stoker ! " In appearance she was stout and took 
strongly after her father's side of the family, bearing 
a marked Jewish impress. 

As for Edward Aveling, there is not much that is 
good to be said, save that he worked hard at times, 
although in a rather mechanical way, for Socialism, 
as he had before done for Secularism, when he was 
associated with the late Charles Bradlaugh. His repu- 
tation, financial, amatory, and otherwise, was very bad, 
but was kept afloat partly at least by the fact that 
stories ever and anon got into circulation about him 
which people believed on the ground of his general 
character, but which, as it happened, were not true, 
and when this was discovered it naturally had the 
effect of negatively improving his reputation by con- 
veying the impression that if this story were false 
others might be so also, and that the man, after all, 
might be the victim of malicious tongues. As an illus- 
tration of this I will quote a story that went the round 
about Aveling at the time of the " split " in the S.D.F. 
It was to the effect that cheques were continually 
being drawn by William Morris in his favour. Now, 
it came out on the evidence of Morris himself that 
up to this time he had never given Aveling a single 
cheque or furnished him with money in any way. 
This was, of course, a great triumph for Aveling, who 
obtained credit and loans in various quarters in con- 
sequence. It is only fair to say that he also later 
made amends for his previous reticence in the matter 



110 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

of exigent borrowing in the case of Morris himself. 
All this shows the danger of crediting specific stories 
about a man on insufhcient evidence, or merely on 
the strength of his general reputation, a habit that 
often has the effect of undeservedly buoying up a bad 
man's character. It is a habit, however, most people 
are very apt to acquire. 

One of the early members of the S.D.F, was Helen 
Taylor, stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. Of a thin, 
spare figure, her self-conceit was unbounded. She 
had a lofty smugness about her which had to be seen 
to be appreciated. Lecturing once at the Eleusis 
Club, she informed her audience that she would never 
marry, as she thought there was no man worthy of her. 
Elected a member of the School Board for London, 
she related one day at a meeting of the S.D.F. council 
in my hearing that she had that morning been driving 
through the Borough to a meeting of the School Board, 
and had noticed groups of workmen sitting or standing 
(it was dinner-hour) at the side of the road, who looked 
up as she drove past and then turned to each other 
and nodded, as much as to say " There she is at her 
work ! " The last phrase was deHvered with a special 
empressement of the haw-haw tone which was habitual 
to her. The fact that the honest proletarians in ques- 
tion may not even have noticed her noble self, but 
merely indicated by their nods that they were agreeing 
that Challenger rather than Paladin was likely to win 
the chief race of that day, seems never to have entered 
the worthy lady's swelled head. And the funny part 
of it was that this preposterous creature, with her airs 
of pseudo-dignity, succeeded in imposing on otherwise 
sensible people, who at the council meetings of the 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 111 

S.D.F. used to rise from their chairs as she majestically 
flaunted into the room. Morris did this at first, but 
on my remonstrating with him promised me not to 
do it any more. The good woman died, I believe, 
some years ago, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, 
attracted thither probably by the cult of the Virgin. 
The Christian Trinity of itself would have been doubtless 
much too masculine a proposition for her. Poor Mill ! 

A typical specimen of the London proletarian was 
J. E. WiUiams, an indefatigable as well as a popular 
agitator in the parks and at the street corners, in every 
way to which he could lay his hand in the cause of 
the working classes and of Socialism. He took part 
in public movements from his earliest years, and has 
remained true to his convictions from start to finish. 

Another man of a different type who in his own way 
contributed his quota of work for the cause of Social- 
ism at this time was Herbert Burrows. He was a 
member of the Democratic Federation from the begin- 
ning and did excellent propaganda service, especially 
in the Midlands, where his calling as a civil servant 
often took him. He is a well-known figure at Socialist 
congresses and Sociahst funerals. 

The proletarian leader of Socialism in this country 
with whom I was in closest personal touch was my 
old friend Harry Quelch. I have already given a 
sketch of his life and of my own relations with him, as 
an introduction to a volume consisting of a selection 
of his articles and short stories published shortly after 
his death by Messrs. Grant Richards & Co. Born 
at Hungerford, in Berkshire, in the late fifties, succes- 
sively cattle-drover in his native place and, on coming 
to London as a young man worker in a tan-yard, and 



112 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

later on warehouseman packer to a firm in Cannon 
Street, then Trade Union secretary, and finally editor 
of Justice, Quelch was one of the most remarkable 
instances of the successfully self-educated man that I 
have ever met. He had a fine intellect, which readily 
grasped a subject in all its bearings, and was quick 
at assimilating new ideas when once placed before 
him. We used, whenever I was in London, to lunch 
together regularly once a week and discuss current 
events and the editorial policy of Justice. Quelch 
remained in harness almost to the last. When already 
struck by mortal illness, he accepted the invitation to 
deliver a course of lectures on Socialism at Ruskin 
College, Oxford, for which, at his request, I drew up a 
detailed syllabus that he seems to have closely followed. 
He died a few months after this, and was buried on 
September 20, 1913. His funeral was attended by 
a large concourse of Socialists of every shade, and 
speeches from the representatives of all the various 
Socialist organizations were made at the grave-side. 
Quelch is one of those men whom one never forgets. 
Always scrupulously loyal to his convictions, he was at 
once a clear thinker and an able and logical exponent 
of the views he professed. 

No account of the history of SociaUsm in England 
would be complete without the mention of the inde- 
fatigable secretary for thirty years of the S.D.F., 
Henry William Lee. One cannot emphasize too much 
the debt that the old organization and the Socialist 
movement in England generally owes to the steady 
work of this energetic man. After the death of Quelch, 
Lee left the secretaryship of the old body to become 
the editor of the weekly paper Justice, where his abilities 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 113 

have proved equally effective in his new sphere of 
party usefulness. 

Among the early pioneers of modern Socialism in 
Great Britain, George Bernard Shaw was conspicuous. 
At a later period successively journalist, critic in music, 
painting, and the drama, novelist, and last but not 
least, dramatic author, Shaw first became known to 
the British, and especially the London, public mainly 
as an eccentric and unattached exponent and >advocate 
of Socialist principles. He was zealous in attending 
meetings at this period and taking part in all discussions 
as they arose. There was scarcely an evening through- 
out the week when his voice and mother-wit were not 
to be heard in some hall or place of discussion in the 
metropolis or the suburbs, from the then existing 
Dialectical Society to the humblest workman's club 
where beer was drunk and pipes smoked. His Sundays 
were regularly booked for this latter class of resort. 
The audience was not infrequently poor alike in numbers 
and intelligence. He would even sometimes find clubs 
at which he had been invited to speak utterly unpre- 
pared to receive him. On one occasion he discovered 
the members of the club for which he was announced 
playing billiards, and arriving five minutes before the 
time fixed for the meeting, he inquired of the billiard 
players when and where the lecture he had been invited 
to give was to be held, receiving for reply the obser- 
vation that they didn't " want no damn'd lecture," 
but intended going on with their game. 

However, in spite of such small rebuffs as these, Shaw 
continued with praiseworthy diUgence, and without re- 
ceiving a penny of material reward, in his endeavours to 
instruct the London proletariat in the economics and 

8 



114 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

politics of Socialism as he conceived it. At first, Shaw 
lectured often for the Social Democratic Federation and 
the Socialist League on general Marxist principles. Later 
on he attached himself to the group of Sidney Webb, 
Graham Wallas, Hubert Bland, and others, who founded 
the Fabian Society, the policy of which was oppor- 
tunism and " permeation " of existing political parties 
and the intelligent middle classes generally with 
Socialist aims and policy, postponing direct propaganda 
for the realization of Socialism itself till a more con- 
venient /season. He and Sidney Webb concocted 
between them a new economic groundwork of Socialist 
theory based on Stanley Jevons's conception of "scarcity 
value " as being the measure of all value, which he 
designated by the name of " final utihty." 

Shaw at this time, lived with his mother and sister in 
Fitzroy Street, N.W., and it was there that his earlier 
writings were produced, though some of them were not 
published until later. I may here relate an anecdote 
from this time illustrative of Shawesque humour. One 
evening Shaw and I had been to a meeting or a concert 
(I forget which), and on coming out we found it was a 
wet night. Shaw, althoifgh never at any time showing 
the usual symptoms of impecuniosity, happening at the 
moment to be short of pocket-cash, borrowed half-a- 
crown of me for a cab. The next day I duly received 
from G.B.S. a post-office order for the half-crown. Hap- 
pening to meet Shaw again two or three evenings later 
with others, I mentioned the fact, and rallied him on 
his somewhat pedantic scrupulosity in taking the trouble 
to buy and forward a post-office order when he knew 
he would be seeing me again in a day or two and might 
have settled the matter then. " Oh ! " said Shaw, 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 115 

"it is my habit to show punctilious accuracy in small 
money matters, so that when the time comes I may 
pull off my big coup with success. To achieve that 
it is absolutely essential to acquire a reputation for 
rigid and undeviating accuracy in small debts. The 
commonplace man does not understand that ! " 

The fame and fortune that have later come to Shaw 
through the brilliancy of his plays have doubtless to 
some extent spoiled him for general purposes. When 
a man has to live up to the character of being a perennial 
fountain of wit, the quality of the wit is often apt to 
become strained. As a matter of fact, if you analyse 
them you can reduce many of Shaw's effects to varia- 
tions on one or two well-marked types. For instance, 
what I may term the " paradox- joke " is a staple with 
Shaw. The following may be taken as a rough illus- 
tration of what I mean. The conversation turns on 
natural scenery, and especially mountain landscapes. 
On some one expatiating on these natural beauties, 
Shaw would, it is likely, at once start and maintain the 
thesis that Mont Blanc from the point of natural beauty 
is not a patch upon Primrose Hill. If you analyse 
it you will be astonished how much in Shawesque 
humour is reducible to the type of this " paradox- 
joke." This he runs rather hard at times, as, for in- 
stance, when he asserts that he likes snobs. A paradox, 
of course, in itself often enshrines a profound truth 
which has been overlaid or distorted by the conven- 
tional thought of interested classes or of the multitude. 
It is the function of the paradox to unmask current 
pseudo-wisdom and to emphasize its real character. 
Now, it is the very importance of this true function 
of paradox in showing the hoUowness of much in 



116 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

current opinion that passes for truth that renders 
it effective when used in the sense of a reductio ad 
absurdum — in other words, in the form of a joke. But 
the thing can be overdone, and when it is overdone 
it begins to pall. Once you detect the mechanism its 
effectiveness evaporates. It may fairly be questioned 
whether Shaw does not run at least very near the limit 
of the legitimate employment of the " paradox-joke/' 
if it is to be an efficient instrument of wit and wisdom. 
But apart from this side-issue, as many will regard 
it, the question arises. Is Shaw's work as literature 
likely to survive in the sense of becoming an EngUsh 
classic ? This is a difficult question to answer with 
anything like decision. Yet I think there is some 
ground for believing that some at least of it will, 
Shaw's points, though many of them are topical and 
hence are destined increasingly to lose their force, 
have nevertheless a present freshness in them which 
will give them a good start, and probably run them 
through at least a couple of generations with their 
smartness but slightly dulled. This was the case with 
Dickens, who is only now beginning to show sere and 
yellow to the appreciation of the younger contemporary 
generation. Such, of course, is the inevitable fate of 
all literature dealing essentially with contemporary 
manners and customs or with contemporary issues. 
But the warding off of the time when " points " begin 
to be blunted and interests dulled is itself an evidence 
of genius of no mean order. The further problem 
then is, Will the work, having lost its special kind of 
interest when written, renew its youth like the eagle's, 
in acquiring the riper and more dignified position of 
a classic ? Will mankind ever place Shaw in the rank 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 117 

of Dickens, Thackeray, Heine, Balzac, etc. ? Time 
will show. Meanwhile the question remains an inter- 
esting subject of speculation for the literary-minded. 
I come now to talk of the man who, after H..M. 
Hyndman, occupied the most prominent place in the 
public eye as a pioneer of Modern Socialism in Great 
Britain, though the prominence attached to the name 
of William Morris in this connexion was originally 
largely due to his already acquired fame as a poet 
and authority on decorative art. I first met Morris 
in the early Spring of 1883, and later at the annual 
conference of the then Democratic Federation, which 
he had recently joined. As stated on a former page, 
I induced him to allow himself to be nominated 
for the Executive Council after he had first declined. 
In view of later developments, and of the way 
in which the Socialist movement absorbed his time 
and energies during the ensuing years, Morris often 
used to chaff me with what I had let him in for, 
remarking of himself, " he little thought when he set 
out of running such a rig." In his connexion with 
Socialism the typical vehemence of energy and enthu- 
siasm of Morris's nature were conspicuously exhibited. 
Whatever he took up with, he threw himself into it 
heart and soul. For four or five years after he had 
definitively joined that movement. Socialism both in 
its theory and as a practical propaganda occupied the 
first place in his thoughts. All his other work fell 
for the time into the background. To relate all the 
incidents of my close association with Morris during 
the years in question would occupy too much space 
in these reminiscences, but a few illustrative of Morris's 
character may be given. / 



118 REMimsCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

If there was one trait especially characteristic of 
Morris's disposition it was his good-heartedness and 
genial jollity. He liked good cheer for himself and 
others. The thing he hated most as a view of life was 
Puritanism in all its aspects. While in no way coun- 
tenancing intemperance, or for that matter serious 
excess of any kind, he abominated teetotalism as he 
did every other form of ascetic fanaticism. He was 
a thorough Pagan in the best sense of the word, who 
believed in living and letting live. With the mortifi- 
cation of the flesh in any form he had no sympathy. 
Such being Morris's general attitude to life in its every- 
day aspects, it will surprise no one to hear that he 
would never meet a friend without " standing drinks," 
He was indeed generous to a fault in every way. Being 
regarded as a good quarry by impecunious anarchist 
refugees from the East of Europe, he would keep a 
drawer full of half-crowns for almsgiving in this kind. 
They called in, he told me, and began to narrate stories 
in unintelligible English, which he generally cut short 
by the production of one or more of these half-crowns, 
according as the personality of the visitor seemed 
sympathetic or not, and this generally had the effect 
of causing him to leave with thanks. Morris kept 
open table at which visitors used to call in casually 
to take "pot-luck." He was strongly averse to all 
formality, and neither gave dinner-parties in the ordinary 
sense nor attended them if he could help it. But he 
was always glad to see his friends drop in at any meal. 
Evening dress he never wore, or a frock-coat. In fact, 
it is impossible to picture Morris otherwise than in 
his well-known garb, consisting of a dark blue serge 
suit and blue shirt without cravat and a " wide-awake " 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES Ud 

hat. Morris was a Bohemian through and through. 
But good-natured and warm-hearted though he was, 
Morris could at times become a prey to the most violent 
fits of passion, in which he objurgated freely. As a 
rule, however, these fits, probably attributable to gout 
(uric acid in the system), only lasted for a few minutes, 
after which his habitual bonhomie reasserted its 
sway. In fact, if anything, he seemed to think it 
incumbent on himself to be more than usually amiable 
to the objurgated person after one of the fits in 
question, 

Morris's solicitude for his friends' safety and welfare 
was always a noticeable trait in his character. On 
one occasion I had the intention of going to Sicily 
especially to visit the ruins of Agrigentum (Girgenti). 
Now at the time there had been some talk of brigandage 
in Sicily. Morris, on my mentioning my idea to him, 
insisted upon my not deciding to go before consulting 
his friend Richmond, the painter, who knew Sicily 
well. Accordingly, we repaired forthwith to Mr. Rich- 
mond's house in Hammersmith. We found the dis- 
tinguished artist suffering from gout and sitting up 
in bed reading Jowett's " Plato." The upshot was that, 
although the danger did not seem very great, Morris 
thought, all things considered, I had better abandon 
the idea of Sicily for the time being. , " There is another 
point, Bax," he said ; "if anything should happen it 
might mean my having to stump up a thousand pounds 
or so cash at a moment's notice, which, though of course 
I should do it if necessary, would still be inconvenient 
to me just at the present time." I should mention 
that some such sum had shortly before been paid as 
ransom for an Englishman captured by brigands. 



120 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Needless to say, after this expression of Morris's view 
the projected expedition was abandoned. 

Another less pleasant incident illustrating the same 
forethought I may here give. Once, during a few 
days' walking tour in Sussex, somewhere between 
Pulborough and Midhurst, we were passing through 
some fields by the side of a stream. Suddenly Morris 
became morose ahd unsociable in manner. A little 
while after again coming upon the highroad we turned 
into an inn for luncheon. Sitting after the meal, I 
asked Morris the reason of his grumpiness. He replied 
that he was much exercised in passing through those 
fields in that he saw bulls regarding us in a more or 
less menacing manner, and that although he himself 
could have escaped by swimming across the little river, 
knowing that I could not swim, he was perplexed as 
to what course to pursue in the event of a bovine attack. 
Hence his surliness. 

Morris was all his life an indefatigable historical 
student. His knowledge of the by-ways of history 
was marvellous. To this he added, especially latterly, 
the study of comparative mythology and what may 
be termed the newer anthropology. His love for the 
Middle Ages as well as for early society generally, but 
especially as exemplified in early Gothic and Germanic 
life, is notorious, and is notably enshrined in some of 
his later prose works. However, I discussed with him 
once what historical surroundings one would wish to 
be reborn into after the manner suggested in Plato's 
myth of Er, and on the question being raised whether 
it would be preferable to be reincarnated as a mediaeval 
baron of the twelfth century or an Athenian Eupatrid 
of the fifth century B.C., to my surprise he seemed 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 121 

inclined to " opt " for the " Athenian gentleman," on 
the ground of the general intellectual life of the classic 
epoch, as against the rudeness of existence in the 
mediaeval castle. The choice would be an obvious one 
to the average cultivated man, but for Morris, with 
his love- of the Gothic, the barbaric, and the mediaeval, 
it came to me somewhat as a surprise. For my own 
part I should always choose to be reborn into a country 
retreat somewhere on the shores of the Eastern Medi- 
terranean in the second century under the Antonines. 
Friedrich Engels once observed to me that so far as 
he was concerned he should give his vote for a new 
lease of life to the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth 
century. 

The falling off in Morris's vigour during the last year 
or two of his life was painful to witnesb. As the kidney 
disease from which he suffered advanced, in spite of 
occasional flashes of his old energy, his powers were 
obviously ebbing away. He died on the 21st of Sep- 
tember 1896. A cruise he had taken a few weeks before 
in Norwegian waters for the benefit of his health not 
only failed in its object, but — which shows the com- 
plete decay of his powers, mental and physical — 
did not seem to excite any special interest in him. 

Morris's views on literature were decided and peculiar. 
Among English poets he did not care for Wordsworth, 
while his admiration for Byron and Shelley was moder- 
ate. Of Coleridge he had a very high opinion. Among 
the moderns, Tennyson he liked, but Browning failed 
altogether to appeal to him as a poet. He thought 
him a vain man personally. He used to say that when 
he met him in society Browning always pretended 
to have forgotten who he was. For the smaller fry 



122 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

he did not care much. Among novelists, Dickens held 
an especially high place with him. He was, it should 
be said, an omnivorous novel-reader. Of the old painters, 
Giotto was his great hero, and among contemporaries 
his old friend with whom he used to breakfast reli- 
giously every Sunday morning, Burne- Jones. To William 
Morris, when one thinks of him, the somewhat hackneyed 
quotation from "Hamlet" seems notably to apply — 
" He was a man, take him for all in all," we " shall not, 
look upon his like again." For Morris was a speciallj' 
striking personality. As a friend of his expressed it 
to me, " by his death one felt as though a piece of one's 
own life had been cut out." 

In the present chapter I have gathered together 
impressions of the most prominent leaders of the 
Socialist movement at the time of its inception in this 
country. They all, with the exception of Shaw, ori- 
ginally belonged to the Social Democratic Federation. 
Of course, names will be missed of men who have sub- 
sequently become identified with one or another form 
of Socialism in Great Britain. The Independent Labour 
Party and the Fabian Society have both produced 
many such. To have included them in this place 
would have carried us too far. Of many, their Social- 
ism is open to criticism, to say the least, and although 
the present writer has had no personal quarrels with 
any of them, their introduction into the present chapter 
would have necessarily suggested polemical discussions 
which lie outside its scope and i^urpose. 

An exception may be made, however, in the case 
of one figure, namely that of Ben Tillett. Ben first 
came into prominence through the part he played in 
the Great Dock Strike of 1889. The account of the 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 128 

strike and its inner working he has himself given in 
an ably written pamphlet. Ever since this great 
landmark in the history of English labour, Ben Tillett, 
the secretary of the Transport Workers' Union, has 
been to the fore in all labour disputes. At first, while 
recognizing his ability as an agitator and an organizer, 
I was not altogether impressed with his attitude, in 
which I thought I detected signs of a certain phil- 
andering with the Nonconformist conscience and the 
section of the bourgeoisie connected therewith. Whether 
this were so or not at that time may be doubtful, but 
in any case the fault, if it ever existed, was short- 
lived with Tillett, who has since come out as a 
thoroughgoing Socialist and a member of the Socialist 
movement. I first became personally acquainted with 
Tillett in 1903, on the occasion of a meeting of the Labour 
party of Southampton to choose their parliamentary 
candidate for the next election. The two men in the 
field were he and my old friend Harry Quelch. I 
may confess that before going to the meeting both 
Quelch and I regarded the nomination of Tillett as 
a hostile move and Tillet himself as a dangerous adver- 
sary. What was our surprise when, on joining Ben 
before the meeting, we found that though he had 
accepted the nomination in form and had come down 
to Southampton ostensibly as a counter-candidate to 
Quelch, he had done so with the intention of throwing 
the whole weight of his support into the scale for Quelch 
In a brilliant speech Tillett proclaimed his Socialism 
and urged his hearers to vote for Quelch as the best 
man they could have to represent them. The chival- 
rous and unselfish conduct on this occasion of Ben, 
who up to this time had not been regarded as a declared 



124 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Socialist, naturally endeared him throughout the ranks 
of the S.D.F. 

As a raconteuy Ben is in his way inimitable, I shall 
never forget his description of the trial of a Chinaman 
in Australia, brought up before a police-court for a petty 
theft ; the lengthy colloquy of the prisoner and his 
interpreter being given in due style, with reminiscences 
of the Chinese language, which on the final demand 
of the weary magistrate as to what the prisoner really 
had to say for himself, resulted in the interpreter's 
laconic reply, " Please, your Honour, he says he didn't 
do it ! " The duologue with its anti-climax was given 
as only Ben can give it. 

There is probably no one in England who has the 
same power of holding and managing the most un- 
ruly or the roughest crowd with the magic of his words 
as Ben Tillett. In a strike he is the one man most 
hated, and most feared by the capitalist class. The 
popular idea is that Ben Tillett is the typical fomenter 
of strikes. Nothing can be more untrue. For in- 
stance, in the Transport Workers' strike of 1912 Tillett, 
as secretary of the Union, strongly opposed the strike. 
It was only when once decided upon by the Union 
against hi^ own wishes that he threw himself, as in 
duty bound, heart and soul into it, in order to make 
the best of things. As a matter of fact, no labour 
leader wants a strike for its own sake. He has every- 
thing to lose and nothing to gain by it. If it fails or 
anything goes wrong, all the blame of the men falls 
upon his shoulders. If it is successful — " Well ! He's 
only done his duty." [Voild tout.) The hatred and abuse 
of the employing class and their Press he receives in 
full measure in eithei case. This notion of the labour 



ENGLISH SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 125 

leader being a strike promoter ib one of the most foolish 
of the many foolish ideas entertained by the middle 
classes on labour matters. But, as Trinculo says in 
the "Tempest," "adversity makes us acquainted with 
strange bedfellows," and one is strongly reminded of 
this when one reads of the obnoxious strike-promotirrg 
Ben being smiled upon, and his recruiting meetings 
presided over, by dukes and other pillars of the State, 
as has been the case during the great European War. 



CHAPTER VI 

PERSONALITIES OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT ON 
THE CONTINENT 

The modern Socialist movement on the continent of 
Europe preceded the movement in England by some 
decades. The imaginative faculty of the continental 
workman is, as a rule, much stronger than that of his 
English colleague, and without an appreciable amount 
of what we may term constructive imagination in the 
masses, no world-historic movement can get under 
way. Then in all the principal continental countries 
there has been a revolutionary tradition that is want- 
ing in Great Britain. Even the Chartist movement 
of the thirties and forties was a flash in the pan, so 
far as revolutionary action was concerned, and hence 
could supply no starting-point for a revolutionary 
tradition such as we meet with in so many continental 
countries.- More than this, its failure before the ad- 
vancing tide of Liberalism rather tended to damp 
down, or we might even say to kill off, all ideas of 
drastic revolutionary change. This may at least partly 
account for the obtuseness of the British working 
classes even to grasp, still more to become enthusiastic 
for, an ideal outside the range of current politics, or, 
indeed, to concern themselves with aught beyond th^ 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 127 

sordid issues of the moment, such as a trifling rise in 
the rate of wages, etc. This is partly due to lack of 
education and knowledge of history, which leads the 
British workman to the view that things as they are 
and were in his lifetime were always so and ever 
shall be, and that any idea of a fundamental change 
in social and economic relations is unworthy of the 
attention of the sensible, practical man that he is. In 
most continental countries, on the other hand, the 
workman is better educated than here, and owing to 
this and his greater imaginative grasp of things, is 
able to look forward to the future in a manner alien 
to the average uneducated English mind, more es- 
pecially as that mind was constituted during the middle 
and even later decades of the nineteenth century 
Hence the priority and the more effective spread of 
Socialist ideas in the minds of the continental working 
class that have hitherto been so noticeable. 

Of all European countries, the revolutionary tradition 
is, and has been since the Great Revolution, strongest 
in France. Hence France throughout the middle 
period of the nineteenth century was regarded as par 
excellence the home of political and social revolution. 
At the same time the great '48 movement seized Europe 
from end to end, and so created a democratic revolu- 
tionary tradition in countries such as Germany (for 
instance) , where, in spite of the prince-made wars which 
had devastated it, such a tradition had before been 
almost wholly absent. If the first suggestions of 
modern Socialism in theory are to be found in the 
Communist manifesto, in practical political life the first 
attempts, vague and inchoate though they may have 
been, are to be looked for in the French Red Repub- 



128 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

lican movement of '48. Between this period and the 
Paris Commune of 1871 the first International was 
founded, and about the same time, or a little before, 
arose the first beginnings of German Social Democracy. 
The International took root and spread in France, 
especially in Paris. The ideas of the old French Red 
Republican party began to grow in clearness, although 
it was still nebulous as regards many of its elements. 
Then came that epoch-making event for modern Social- 
ism, the Paris Commune. I have already briefly dealt 
with the Paris Commune, and I need onl}?^ here remind 
the reader that the Commune was the first government 
manned by the working classes and which had the 
Socialistic reorganization of society as its aim. The 
Paris Commune, therefore, and the year 1871 afford 
us a convenient date for reckoning the birth of 
the modern Socialist movement in the wider form in 
which we have known it during the last decades of the 
nineteenth and the opening years of the present cen- 
tury. The beginnings, of course, in various lands date 
from an earlier period, as already pointed out ; but 
from the seventies onward the Socialist movement in 
all countries has become a world-movement, the im- 
portance of which is universally recognized, which 
cannot be said of the earlier and more local movements 
out of which it developed. 

As already explained in an earlier chapter, the Com- 
mune it was that awakened me, as it awakened many 
others, to an interest in the Social problem, and the 
first Socialists that I met were members or adherents 
of the Commune. There was Pascal Grousset, a hand- 
some man, who in the later seventies was a regular 
attendant at the British Museum Reading-room. About 



I 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 129 

the time referred to, I used to see a good deal of him, 
and often talked over the Commune. He deplored the 
want of initiative and of a coherent policy which char- 
acterized it. He also told me how ignorant the non- 
political Parisians were of the actual facts of the struggle 
going on around them. During the semaine sanglante, 
he said — at a time, that is, when the unfortunate Com- 
munards were being butchered by the Versailles troops 
on all sides — he overheard a woman saying to a child 
she had in her arms, in tones of indignation, " Out, 
oui, mon petit, nous nous rappelerons de la Commune, 
nous, n'est-ce pas? " the idea being, of course, that 
the Communards were the slaughterers instead of the 
slaughtered. 

During their exile in London, the adherents of the 
Commune used to celebrate the outbreak of the 
insurrection of the i8th of March by a banquet in a 
French hotel named, if I remember rightly, the " Hdtel 
de la Cloche," in one of the passages off Holborn. I 
was present by invitation on one of these occasions 
(1880), when I remember that Charles Longuet, who 
married Jenny Marx, Karl Marx's eldest daughter, 
and became father of Jean Longuet, at present editor 
of V Humanite and member of the Chamber, made a 
speech in which he set forth the failure of the Commune 
to achieve its ends as being due to the fact that the 
Commune had to struggle with the military situation 
throughout. This hampered its social and economic 
work, while at the same time it was unable to cope 
with the military situation itself. Hartmann, the 
Russian Nihilist, was present at this anniversary dinner. 
Dr. Albert Regnard, the secretary of police under the 
Commune, a man with an extraordinarily impressive 

? 



130 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

head and, like Pascal Grousset, a constant student at 
the British Museum, was also present. Charles Longuet, 
Paschal Grousset, and Albert Regnard are ail three long 
since dead, as also Camelinat, the governor of the 
Tuileries during the Commune, and many others who 
were there. Of those who took a leading part in 
the events of the Spring of '71 there are few, if any, 
survivors left. The last time I met some of the " old 
guard " together was about the January of 1899, ^^ 
a little friendly gathering one evening in a cafe some- 
where off the Boulevard St. Michel. " Papa " Longuet, 
as he was called, I saw, however, for the last time at 
a luncheon party at his house in the Autumn of 1900, 
after the Paris Congress of that year. 

Of the newer men of the French Socialist movement, 
the one who played the most prominent role was Jean 
Jaures. He came noticeably to the front in the later 
years of the nineties. Jaures studied for an academic 
career at the University of Paris, and was a contem- 
porary of the celebrated Henri Bergson as a student. 
Subsequently he became Professor of Philosophy at 
the University of Toulouse. His strikingly brilliant 
oratorical powers are known to all the world. Staunch 
and consistent to his declared convictions throughout 
his whole political career, his fairness and rigid im- 
partiality of judgment procured him the esteem of 
men of all parties. His achievements in the way of 
work were something extraordinary. With all his 
parliamentary duties he found time to write a detailed 
and carefully documented history of the French Revo- 
lution, perhaps the best existing. As a conversation- 
alist, Jaures was not so striking as he was as an orator. 
A nervous twitching of the eyes, especially when in 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 131 

company, was a marked characteristic. Jaures never- 
theless had remarkably persuasive powers in dealing 
with men. No other man could have succeeded in 
uniting the apparently irreconcilable sections of the 
French Socialist party and welding them into an 
organized whole as Jaures did after the Amsterdam 
Congress of 1904. This was the more remarkable a 
triumph of personal magnetism and of the respect 
inspired by character, seeing that Jaures had un- 
doubtedly played a distinctly opportunist role during 
the Combes administration. His bowing to the decision 
of the Amsterdam Congress, which was practically a 
condemnation of his attitude in the matter in question, 
was an act of self-abnegation which showed a true 
sense of Internationalism. Altogether, Jean Jaures 
was a rare personality. Possessed of personal ami- 
ability combined with extraordinary powers alike in 
the intellectual and practical spheres, and an integrity 
of character not merely moral, but political as well, 
which was absolutely stainless, it is difficult to find 
his equal as an all-round man, at once a capable theorist 
and a remarkable leader. 

Another very different personality, well known in 
French Socialist circles at one time, although as a poli- 
tical force somewhat of an homme manque, was Paul 
Lafargue, who married Laura, the second daughter of 
Karl Marx. A pleasant and genial fellow, who had 
sat at the feet of Marx himself and was an intimate 
friend of Engels, Lafargue was chiefly known as a 
writer of propagandist pamphlets, of which the most 
popular was the " Droit a la Paresse," and polemical 
essays on the materialist theory of history, on Marxian 
lines. He was, however, elected to the Chamber once, 



182 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

though he failed to make his mark there. His writings 
were vivacious and clear, but for the most part super- 
ficial and without originality. He was a striking- 
looking man personally, with a dash of negro blood in 
his veins. His devotion to his wife was extraordinary, 
and they committed suicide together by means of 
morphia injection early in 1912 in his house at Draveil, 
near Paris, the alleged ground being dread of approach- 
ing old age, though some say financial embarrassment 
was the cause. He was close upon seventy and his 
wife a few years younger. Lafargue, as I knew him, 
was a fairly well-to-do man, but had the reputation, 
whether justly or unjustly, of being somewhat close 
in money matters, for which reason, I suppose, he 
obtained the nickname in the French party of le 
petit dpicier. 

An abler man than Lafargue and, like Jaures, a power- 
ful orator, is Jules Guesde, who became a member of 
the first French coalition War Ministry. An intimate 
personal friend of Lafargue, he was the leader of the 
specially orthodox Marxian wing of the French Socialist 
movement. Tall and striking, with his long black 
beard, Guesde has been an impressive figure at all 
International Socialist Congresses. His uncompro- 
mising zeal for the purity of the party in the sense 
of its rigid adhesion to principle, and his abhorrence 
of all contamination with the trickery of bourgeois 
party politics, were notable features of his policy and 
speeches on all such occasions. I shall never forget Ihe 
fieiy and powerful attack he made at the Amsterdam 
Congress of 1904 on the policy of Jaures at that time, 
which favoured the participation (under suitable 
guarantees, of course) of Socialists in the work of exist- 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 133 

ing governments. Jaur^s, as already stated, subse- 
quently receded from this position in deference to the 
decision of the International Congiess, and was instru- 
mental in the formation of the French United Socialist 
party, on which, of course, Guesde and Jaures became 
reconciled. Guesde has been accused recently of dere- 
liction of principle in having joined the coalition French 
Ministry. It may fairly be argued, however, that the 
principle of abstention from co-operation with non- 
Socialists or anti-Socialist governments, even in matters 
where they are prepared to make concessions from a 
Socialist point of view, does not apply to the abnormal 
conditions arising from a national crisis precipitated 
by an invasion and the presence of a hostile foreign 
force on the national territory. Besides, the case of a 
coalition government in normal times is quite different. 
In an ordinary government the theory is that complete 
unity and solidarity obtain as between its members. 
The mere participation, therefore, in such a govern- 
ment necessarily indicates, at the very least, bare assent 
to all its measures, and to give even this implied assent 
to measures, many, or probably most, of which will be 
designed with the purpose of bolstering up the present 
capitalist system in some form or shape, is obviously 
inconsistent for a Socialist who is the sworn enemy 
of that system. The case of a coalition ministry in 
time of war, however, is by no means the same. Here 
there is no pretence of agreement on any other point 
than the desire to provide the most effective organiza- 
tion for the national defence, and there is no question 
of any legislation not bearing on this one question 
being introduced. Hence, whether advisable or un- 
advisable as a matter of expediency in a particular 



134 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

case, I fail to see any breach of essential consistency 
in the course adopted by Jules Guesde as regards 
France, or for that matter by Emile Vandervelde as 
regards Belgium, in joining the coalition Ministries 
of their respective countries. The divergencies of view 
and hostility between various members of such coali- 
tion ministries are openly and directly admitted on 
any or on all points lying outside the immediate purpose 
for which the government in question has been formed. 
This being so, membership of an emergency cabinet 
of this sort does not, I contend, necessarily infringe the 
principle of abstention from co-operation with non- 
Socialist political parties. 

Other of the later leaders of Socialism in France I 
have met on different occasions, but have not known 
more closely. If I remember rightly, I sat with Aristide 
Briand at the London Congress at Queen's Hall in 
1896 on the Standing Orders Committee. The late 
Charles Vaillant, the old member of the Commune, 
was also there. 

Turning from France to its eastern neighbour, little 
Switzerland, in taking note of the proletarian and Social- 
ist movement, one can hardly fail to remark as one of 
its foremost representatives the name and figure of 
Hermann Greulich, the Labour Secretary for the Swiss 
Confederation. The shaggy figure of Greulich, with its 
shock head of white hair and ragged beard and its rough 
garb, of which the homespun jersey generally forms 
a part, has been prominent at all Socialist Congresses. 
Greulich is an autodidact, and a very remarkable one. 
Born in Breslau in 1843, of poor parents, he was appren- 
ticed to the bookbinding trade, after having received 
the ordinary school education. During the Lehrjahre 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 185 

and Wanderjahre, which at that time formed part of the 
curriculum through which every skilled workman in 
Germany had to pass, Greulich improved every occasion 
for self-education. This he has continued throughout 
his life. As a young man Greulich emigrated to 
Switzerland, becoming a Swiss citizen, and ultimately 
settling in Ziirich. What is remarkable in Greulich 
is his all-round culture. He is not merely well read 
in the literature of Socialism, in general economics, or 
in the aspects of industrial history, having an especial 
bearing on the present conditions of the working class, 
but there are few departments in which he is not equally 
grounded. Greulich has all the qualifications of a 
scholar and what the Germans call a Schongeist, and 
would have doubtless made a name for himself in 
scholarship or in literature had he been born in different 
circumstances. As it is, his conversation never fails 
to leave the impression of a man of wide reading and 
independent thought. 

As might be expected, no name throughout the 
working-class and Socialist movement of Switzerland 
is better known than that of Hermann Greulich. It 
is a curious circumstance that Greulich has been the 
victim more than once of false reports of his death. 
Some years ago one of my sons, returning from a visit 
to New York, told me that a report was current in Swiss 
circles there that Greulich was dead. I immediately 
wrote to him stating that I had heard he was dead, 
but hoped it was not true. A few days later I received 
a reply from him that he was not dead, although he 
had not been very well lately. 

Singularly enough, not very long after this another 
report of his death arose, and this time in Ziirich itself. 



186 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

The rumour spread very widely that the well-known 
labour leader, parliamentary representative, cantonal 
and municipal counsellor, Hermann Greulich, was no 
more. That evening the Choral Society of Zurich, of 
which Greulich was an active and influential member, 
met for rehearsal, when the conductor, on taking his 
seat at the desk, addressed the society on the sad 
news of the loss they had sustained in the death of 
one who had done so much for the society and for 
choral music in Switzerland generally. He invited 
his hearers to rise in their places as a sign of respect 
for the deceased before proceeding with the work of 
the evening. This act of homage was only just per- 
formed when Greulich himself walked in. Already in 
the afternoon of the day the same rumour had spread 
round the shores of the lake, where silk- weaving factories 
and other industrial establishments are situated. In 
many of these the workmen demanded that work 
should cease for the day as befitting the occasion of 
the loss of the great Swiss labour leader. This was 
objected to by the employers, and after some alter- 
cation the matter was arranged by the compromise 
that work should continue that day till the usual hour, 
but that the factory should be closed altogether on 
the day of the funeral. Accordingly, the same evening 
a committee was formed for celebrating the obsequies, 
wreaths bought, and a speaker chosen to deliver the 
funeral oration. Next day that committee dissolved. 
I remember very well one afternoon sitting with 
Greulich in the Labour Bureau, when the late Sir Randall 
Cremer, whom I knew slightly, appeared seeking some 
piece of information or other. I had to act as inter- 
preter for Sir Randall, who did not speak German. 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 187 

The upshot was an invitation for GreuHch and myself 
to dine with him that evening at the Bellevue Hotel, 
where he was staying, to meet the late Sir John Lubbock 
(afterwards Lord Avebury), who was also a guest there. 
We went and met Sir John, but I am bound to say 
the distinguished man did not impress Greulich or 
myself as giving evidence of any great intellectual 
power in his manner and conversation. Whether the 
report was true that his books were by no means 
entirely original, but largely the work of "ghosts," I 
am unable to say. On the other hand, it is of course 
undeniable that the capacities of able men by no 
means always translate themselves into an impressive 
personality in social intercourse. 

The German Social Democratic party, owing to various 
circumstances, to its direct connexion with the chief 
founder of modern scientific Socialism, to its rapid 
growth and consequent numerical greatness, as well 
as to its perfect organization, acquired up to the out- 
break of the war in 1914 a certain hegemony over the 
International Socialist movement as represented by 
the National Socialist parties of other countries. Hence 
the German party, as it existed from its inception until 
recent years, has a unique interest and importance 
of its own. Latterly, of course, as many of us had 
long suspected, and as events have proved, it had 
degenerated into a favourable nest for political in- 
triguers and adventurers of the worst type. But 
this is a development of the last twenty years, 
and, indeed, in its worst form, of much less time. 
It was not always so. And even now there is no 
evidence at present forthcoming that the defection 
and corruption of the majority of its actual parlia- 



138 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

mentary leaders is shared in by the bulk of the rank 
and file. There can be no doubt, however, that im- 
patience with mere propaganda, and the desire to play 
a role in current, or as it would be termed " practical," 
politics, has prepared for many years past a suitable 
soil for " Revisionists " and political tricksters of all 
sorts. On the other hand, in the conduct of the party 
from its early beginnings in the sixties to near the end 
of the nineties of the ist century there is no serious 
breach of principle that can be charged against it as 
a whole. For the earlier period I refer, of course, to 
the Marxian party. The followers of Lassalle were 
always Nationalist. The question of International- 
ism was indeed one of the great bones of contention 
between them and the Marxians. The tendency of 
the Lassallian party, moreover, was undoubtedly not 
without inclinations to traffic with non-Socialist parties. 
But from the union of the two sections at Erfurt in 
1875, when the bulk of the Lassallian section accepted 
the Marxian programme in its entirety, until, let us 
say 1895, although mistakes may have been made 
by individual members, there was nothing in the conduct 
of the party as a whole calculated to forfeit the respect 
and confidence of the Socialists of other countries. 

Now, the personalities with whom I was best ac- 
quainted in the German movement were those who 
flourished in the period named — the so-called " old 
guard " of German Social Democracy. The names 
of the late Wilhelm Liebknecht, of the noble conduct 
of whose heroic son Karl we have heard so much during 
the present war, August Bebel, Paul Singer, and others 
less known to the outside public, will hold a distin- 
guished and an honourable place in the history of the 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 139 

Socialist movement for all time. My introduction to 
the men of the German movement during the eighties 
was in the main, directly or indirectly, through Friedrich 
Engels. Karl Kautzky, upon whom the mantle of 
Engels as theorist of the German movement fell after 
the latter's death, I met first at Engel's house in Regent's 
Park Road. Bernstein I first saw in Ziirich in 1886. 
He was then editing the party organ, the Sozialdemokrat, 
there, it being during the period when Bismarck's 
anti-Socialist legislation was in force. Of several of 
the then prominent members of the party I made the 
personal acquaintance at Ziirich and St. Gallen, at 
the time of the great party Congress held at the latter 
town in October 1887. This Congress was necessarily, 
under the circumstances, of a more or less secret char- 
acter. I was invited to attend by the executive council 
of the party, the members of which arrived in Ziirich 
from Germany a few days before the Congress met. 
Our train was received at the St. Gallen station by a 
committee of trusty party men, who had been in the 
town already for a day or two, organizing the arrange- 
ments, and who conducted us to the inn " Zum Schonen 
Weg," some two miles out. I remember that Grillen- 
berg, the Reichstag member for Niirnberg, who had 
come by a previous train, and had been followed from 
Germany by a Government spy, on remonstrating at 
being dogged by this man, was assaulted by him with 
a life-preserver and left bleeding on the road. He 
was, however, taken to the house of a friendly inn- 
keeper in St. Gallen for recovery. The proceedings 
of the Congress lasted nearly a week, and during this 
time I naturally came into close relations with all the 
more important members of the movement, lodging 



140 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in the same Gasthaus with Liebknecht, Bebel, Singer, 
Auer, Hasenclever, etc. Not one of these men of the 
" old guard " of the German party is now Hving. Among 
the burning issues discussed at this Congress was a 
vote of censure on certain members of the party for 
having supported a Government project, to wit, the 
construction of the so-called Baltic Canal. The majority 
of the party, including all the leaders with the excep- 
tion, I think, of Hasenclever, were for maintaining in 
its integrity the principle of opposition to all important 
Government enterprises. This Congress of the German 
party of October 1888 created considerable sensation 
at the time, as it was the first that had been held since 
the passing of the anti-Socialist law. 

Old Wilhelm Liebknecht, who died in 1900, I often 
met during the ensuing years both at Socialist congresses 
and in private. But the man with whom I came 
most in contact among the leaders of the " old guard " 
of German Social Democracy was August Bebel. This 
was largely owing to the fact that Bebel, whose daughter 
Frieda married and was living in Zurich, built himself 
a house at Kiissnacht, about three miles from the town, 
on the lake. Many are the discussions on points of 
Socialist policy, on the woman question, etc., I have 
had with him during these years. I can recall one 
incident of a somewhat amusing character to those 
who witnessed it. One evening I had crossed the lake 
to Kiissnacht from a place on the other side with some 
friends. At Kiissnacht we boarded the steamer going 
to Ziirich. Bebel was on deck with a group of com- 
panions. Among my own party was a Socialist from 
Koln, who had fled to Switzerland, having been threat- 
ened with a prosecution for some article he had written 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 141 

in the local party organ. Now, it should be said that 
a ukase had recently been issued by the Council of 
the party that those threatened with prosecutions of 
this kind should not flee, but " face the music." The 
immediate occasion of this decision was the fact that 
certain persons, having expatriated themselves for the 
foregoing reason and not finding employment whither 
they had gone, had become a financial charge upon 
the party. Such, however, was not the case with 
the person in question, who had sufficient means of 
his own to live on. Hence he maintained that the 
rule referred to did not in intention apply to his case. 
Bebel, however, took the view of the stern moralist, 
fearing, as he afterwards told me, that the comrade 
in question would tend to become demoralized by the 
idle life he was leading, being still quite a young man. 
Accordingly, with perhaps questionable tact, Bebel 
seized the occasion of meeting the unfortunate Rhine- 
lander on the steamer for rebuking him severely for his 
conduct in not only infringing party discipline, but 
withdrawing himself from his legitimate sphere of 
usefulness. The scene was distinctly humorous. There 
stood on the deck of the steamer our passive Rhinelander, 
looking rather " small," while his party leader, confront- 
ing him, poured forth a flood of admonishing rebukes, 
the two principal actors in the scene being surrounded 
by an audience of some twenty persons, consisting of 
friends, acquaintances, and casual outsiders. 

I chaffed Bebel afterwards at the exhibition of the 
Rhinelander in the role of the poor sinner being 
rebuked by his father-in-God. Bebel pleaded that he 
had only acted with the best intentions for the man's 
good. The man himself, however, apparently took 



142 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

this matter otherwise, and a few days later, at a little 
dinner-party given by a mutual friend to which our 
Rhinelander, Bebel, and myself were invited, the 
Rhinelander was conspicuous by his absence. 

My intercourse with the circle in Ziirich in which 
Bebel moved belonged mainly to the nineties of the 
last century. It was not confined to members of the 
Socialist party, but included some men of the '48 period, 
already, as may be imagined, having attained " the 
sere and yellow " stage. Most of them were refugees 
from Germany who had settled down in Switzerland 
on the collapse of the '48 revolutionary movement. 
The somewhat belated ideas of these good men and 
their want of understanding of modern Socialism were 
amusing and instructive. 

The later years of Bebel's political career were some- 
what clouded for many of his Socialist comrades by 
the unfortunate speech suggestive of jingoism which 
he made in the Reichstag in March 1907. Returning 
from the South of France through Ziirich a few weeks 
after its delivery, I there met his wife, Julia Bebel. On 
my expressing my regrets at the pronouncement in 
question, she entirely agreed, remarking, " I told August 
that he had made a great mistake and that his state- 
ments would be resented by many." This was the 
last time I saw her, for she died a few months later. 
Bebel himself lived six years longer, being found dead 
in his bed on the 20th August 1913, at a health resort 
near Chur, in Eastern Switzerland. 

Talking of the German party and its " old guard," 
I must not forget my old friend the " Red Postmaster," 
as he was called, from the fact of his having organized 
the transmission to Germany from Ziirich of the 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 143 

Sozialdemokrat during the period of the anti-Socialist 
law. Julius Motteler had been a member of the 
Reichstag from the beginning. A Swabian by birth, 
he early became attached to the party, where his 
exceptional abilities as an organizer soon made him 
one of its most indispensable members. His steady and 
unswerving devotion throughout his life to his ideals 
(he died in 1907, aged seventy) and his amiability of 
character have left an ineffaceable memory with those 
who knew him. 

Of the leaders of the Austrian party, though I have 
met them all at congresses and elsewhere, the one with 
whom I have had most personal intercourse is the 
original founder of the party, and still its leading repre- 
sentative, Victor Adler. Adler devoted a considerable 
part of his personal fortune to organizing the Austrian 
movement in its earlier stages. Austrian Socialism 
owes much to him. It should be said that Adler per- 
sonally deprecates the credit he has got for his pecuniary 
sacrifices to the party, saying that it was not so much 
after all, and that too much had been made of it. In 
any case, however, it amounted to the best part of 
the fortune his father left him. Suffering for some 
years from asthma and chronic bronchial catarrh, 
Adler was in the habit, up to the outbreak of the war 
in 1914, of spending some two or three months of the 
worst part of the winter on the Riviera, where I often 
met him. He has, of late years especially, developed 
marked opportunist or, as it would be called in the 
German-speaking world, " Revisionist " tendencies. 
His belief in parliamentary action as a means for the 
emancipation of the proletariat is unbounded. He 
seems at times, indeed, to regard Socialist principles 



144 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

with a certain amount of impatience, as a hindrance 
to the party's activity in so-called " practical politics." 

One of the most effective speakers amongst Austrian 
Socialists (Adler himself is not a good speaker) is the 
former Radical and veteran party politician, Engelbert 
Pernerstorfer. There are few men in Austria who 
can sway a large popular assembly with their eloquence 
as can Pernerstorfer. 

The Austrian movement has produced many able 
men whom the exigencies of space preclude from par- 
ticularizing. There is one, however, who, not himself 
a member of the Socialist party though generally 
sympathetic with its aims, is well known in certain 
circles in this country as the energetic secretary of 
the " International League for the Protection of 
Workmen," having its central bureau in Switzerland, 
at Basel. I refer to Stephen Bauer, who, in addition 
to his secretaryship of the League in question, occupies 
the position of Professor of Political Economy in Basel 
University. Bauer was a great friend of the late Sir 
Charles Dilke, at whose house he was a frequent visitor. 
His International League for Workmen's Protection, 
which was founded at a meeting of International dele- 
gates held at Zurich in 1897, is anything but Socialistic 
in its character and mode of working. It is based 
rather on the notion of gaining the support and assist- 
ance of the various national governments in the 
furtherance of its object ; in a word, it relies on the 
official class in the various countries rather than on 
the democracy for the realization of its object. Still, 
small as may be the faith of the Socialist in any serious 
amelioration of the lot of the workman resulting from 
these methods, even he must pay a tribute to the 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 145 

energy of the League's secretary in waiting on ministers, 
under-secretaries of departments, not to speak of the 
smaller fry of officialdom, soliciting both personally 
and by letter their support and interest with their 
respective governments on its behalf. And he claims 
to have achieved at least something. Whether this 
something is worth the time, energy, and machinery 
expended on it, and whether such might not have 
been used to a better purpose, is another question. 
Stephen Bauer is a good linguist, a brilliant conver- 
sationalist, and knows his Anglo-Saxondom, both British 
and American, well. 

The mention of Basel reminds me of another pro- 
fessor (though not an Austrian) at the Basel University, 
a man of acute and powerful intellect, a friend and 
colleague of Bauer's, to wit, Robert Michels. Of an 
old German family of the Rhineland, Michels has 
lived for many years in Italy, and has, I believe, 
recently become a naturalized Italian. Michels began 
life as a German officer, but the horrors of militarism 
in general and of the Prusso-German military service 
in particular led him to renounce his original pro- 
fession and take to an academic career. He soon 
after joined the Socialist movement, but it was not 
long before he became dissatisfied with the inaction 
and opportunism of the party as represented in the 
Reichstag, which he criticized, not sparing some of 
the honoured leaders, in more than one scathing article. 
During his residence in Italy, where he obtained the 
professorship of Political Economy at Turin, his member- 
ship of the German party seems to have lapsed. He 
was, however, present at the International Congress at 
Stuttgart in 1907. Here occurred a trifling incident 

10 



146 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

which affords an illustration of a significant trait in 
the German national character, to wit, its excessive 
tendency to hero-worship. Some appreciative remarks 
to some of the Germans present having been made 
by an English delegate a propos of Michels, the obser- 
vation came from the German side that Michels, it 
was understood, had written something against Bebel, 
the implication being that if this were so he was a 
man with whom one should have nothing to do. Now, 
Michels, in denouncing the slackness and opportunist 
tendencies of the Socialist party in the Reichstag, had, 
as a matter of fact, criticized Bebel. But there was 
nothing in his article of a personally offensive nature, 
or that was otherwise than what would elsewhere 
have been regarded, whether right or wrong in itself, 
as perfectly fair comment. But the shuddering horror 
at the laying of a sacrilegious hand on the party leader 
is, as already said, characteristic. It is only fair to 
Bebel to add that he himself took the matter much 
more sensibly, and meeting Michels in a hotel in a 
Swiss health resort a year or two later, became perfectly 
friendly. 

Bebel's own good sense in the matter excited the 
indignation of, I am sorry to say, other Germanic 
colleagues, among them Victor Adler, who expressed 
to me the opinion that Bebel ought to have refused 
to speak with his critic in terms of social intercourse. 
I had a further illustration of this same national char- 
acteristic on Bebel's will becoming known, and this 
time it was again exemplified in the person of Adler. 
Speaking of the will, I ventured the harmless remark 
to Adler that I was rather surprised that Bebel had 
not left a larger sum to the party, I did not say this 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 147 

in any spirit of severe criticism or even of disapproval, 
but the bare remark was enough to excite Adler's in- 
dignant remonstrances, which even tended to overstep 
the Hmits of personal courtesy. Hero-worship up to 
a point may be an excusable and even a laudable 
sentiment, but hero-worship developed to the point 
of an idolatry which would place its object above 
criticism, thus making of the latter a kind of God 
Almighty, whose name must not be mentioned save 
in terms of reverential adulation, is surely to be depre- 
cated. Adler comes, of course, of Jewish stock, but, 
as is often the case with the Jewish race, he has com- 
pletely assimilated the characteristics and tradition 
of the nationality with which his family have been 
for so many generations identified. And the trait 
just referred to is, I venture to think, significant beyond 
what might at first sight appear. It seems peculiar 
to the German character and national habit — this 
slavish attitude towards persons in authority, whether 
party leaders, kings, kaisers, policemen, or non-com- 
missioned officers. It will explain much in the some- 
what abject role played by the German peoples towards 
their Prussian rulers in recent events. This servile 
strain in the German character is a strange blemish 
in a race otherwise possessed of such great intellectual 
powers. The " cold-shouldering " of Robert Michels 
for criticizing Bebel by his former colleagues of the 
Social Democratic party is of a piece with the tolera- 
tion by the German people as a whole of the laws of 
lese-majeste and Prussian military discipline, etc. 

Turning to the Italian comrades, among those 
I have known best are Turati, since become a some- 
what moderate and chastened Socialist light of Monte- 



148 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Citorio. At the time I knew him he was in association 
with Madame Kolischoff, a Russian lady who has 
played a not uninfluential part in the Italian Socialist 
party in earlier years. Much more intimate than 
with Turati was my acquaintance with that genial 
free-lance Paulo Valera. A clever and even brilUant 
journalist, Valera has never been in the Italian Chamber, 
or has, indeed, played any very important role in the 
party organization itself. He is known best as pamph- 
leteer. In this capacity and on his own lines he has 
scarcely an equal in Italy, though the chief seat of his 
activity remains local, to wit, Milan and Lombardy. 
Professor Enrico Ferri, whose picturesque figure of 
old Roman type did not fail to attract attention at 
Socialist Congresses, was known as a fine orator, and 
for a time led the left wing of the Italian movement. 
Of genial disposition, and socially agreeable as he was, 
I have always regretted his defection from his old 
principles. It is not so many years ago since I was 
one of a large number of Socialists of all countries to 
sign their names to an illuminated address which was 
presented to him as a testimony to his services for 
the cause. 

Among the Russians, I have already in an earlier 
chapter spoken of Kropotkin. The late Wolkowsky 
was for some years well known in London political 
circles. He was also prominent as a lecturer on his 
personal experiences in the Russian movement. I 
heard him deliver his lecture entitled " The Story of 
my Life," in which he described his persecutions at 
the hands of the Russian authorities, in the Temple, 
to the members of the Hardwicke Society. A more 
important person than the last mentioned was Sergius 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 149 

Stepniak, whose real name was Kravchinsky. Of 
powerful build, thickset, and of strong Mongoloid face 
and figure, Stepniak was a prominent personality in 
advanced London society during the eighties and early 
nineties. I cannot recall anything especially striking 
in his conversation, though the man conveyed an un- 
doubted impression of power in his whole personality. 
" Underground Russia " and " The Career of a Nihilist," 
the latter book a novel that excited the warm admira- 
tion of Shaw, undoubtedly give evidence of literary 
genius, each in its own way. Stepniak's untimely 
death by an express train on the level crossing near 
Turnham Green assuredly cut short the career of one 
who would have achieved much more than he did had 
he lived. 

Another personality among the advanced Russian 
politicians with whom I came much in contact is 
worthy our attention for a moment. I refer to the 
one time Slade Professor of Slav language and litera- 
ture at Oxford, the late Maxim Kowalewski. Like 
most cultivated Russians, he spoke fluently, besides 
his native tongue, English, German, French, and Italian. 
Though not himself a professed Socialist, Kowalewski 
was on terms of personal friendship with many of the 
leading representatives of Socialist thought through- 
out Europe. Marx and Engels he knew well and was 
much liked by them. Vandervelde was also a friend 
of Kowalewski and a frequent visitor at his villa in 
Beaulieu, besides other more or less prominent members 
of the Socialist party. Speaking for myself, I shall 
always have pleasant recollections of the hospitality 
received at the Villa Batava. Kowalewski had a man- 
servant or valet of local origin named Baptiste, but who 



150 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

was colloquially spoken of as " Leporello," of whom he 
used to relate amusing anecdotes. On applying for the 
situation, this worthy gave as one of his qualifications 
that he had received the first prize for dancing in his 
native village. On one occasion when Kowalewski 
was about to give a large dinner-party, he duly instructed 
" Leporello," when serving at table, to help the older 
ladies before the younger ones. " Leporello " en- 
deavoured conscientiously to carry out his master's 
instructions. Now it so happened there were two 
ladies sitting near each other, alike of doubtful and 
uncertain age. Accordingly, our " Leporello," not quite 
knowing which to serve first, decided to solve the matter 
by putting the question straight to them, " Mesdames, 
laquelle de vous est la plus ancienne?" During the 
latter years of his life Kowalewski resided in Russia, 
where, probably as a sop thrown to the left wing of 
the Duma, he was offered a seat on the Russian Imperial 
Council. He accepted it, he told me, when he called 
on me a year or two ago on a flying visit to his old 
haunts, thinking he might bring successful pressure to 
bear on the Government in favour of political prisoners. 
This seems actually to have been the case in some 
instances. 

Before closing the present chapter it may be worth 
while to say a few words on the general subject of 
International Congresses. The first of the series of 
International Socialist Congresses, which were inter- 
rupted by the outbreak of the European War, though 
not before they had resulted in the establishment of 
the International Bureau, thereby constituting the 
New International, as it was called, was held in 1889 
in Paris, At this Congress, which divided itself into 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 151 

two, owing to the split between the Guesdist and the 
Broussist sections of the French party, I was not 
present. A second Congress was held two years later 
at Brussels, in which I also took no part. The third 
Congress was at Ziirich in 1893, and on this occasion 
I attended as a delegate of the Social Democratic 
Federation. This Congress was notable for the fact 
that Friedrich Engels made the closing speech, in the 
course of which he explained the reasons for the action 
of Marx and himself which led to the break-up of the 
old International in the seventies. The reasons given, 
as I have already stated, were that they both felt that 
the organization in its then existing form had done 
its work, and that it was not strong enough to face 
the opposition and persecution with which it was 
threatened by the Governments of Europe. They felt, 
he said, that its continued existence at that time was 
likely only to result in unnecessary suffering for members 
of the working-class movement, and perhaps even 
the loss of some of its best leaders. This authoritative 
statement made by Engels has undoubtedly consider- 
able interest for the historian of the Socialist party, 
although the point of view taken might have, and has 
indeed, been traversed by those not belonging to the 
Marxian section in the narrower sense in which the 
French used to speak of "la chapelle Marx." For 
the rest, the Ziirich Congress of 1893 was signalized by 
some disturbances created by the Anarchist and 
quasi-Anarchist elements that had got into certain of 
the delegations, especially the French and the Dutch. 
Up to the Ziirich Congress these meetings had been 
held every two years, as decided by the Paris Congress 
of 1889. But at Ziirich the German party pressed 



152 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

for a longer interval between the International gather- 
ings, suggesting even lour or five years as not too long. 
Eventually three years was decided upon, and the 
next Congress took place in 1896 in London. It was 
held at the Queen's Hall, and I was elected on to the 
Standing Orders Committee. The Congress opened 
noisily, owing to the intrusion of Anarchist elements. 
The French delegation had stormy sittings and even- 
tually became split into two parts, the moderate section 
of which Millerand was a member refusing to work 
any longer with the extreme section. The latter 
section, if not actually Anarchist, certainly had Anar- 
chistic tendencies, though its opponents, it is only 
fair to say, included men like Millerand himself, whose 
Socialist principles were unquestionably of a very 
doubtful character. At this Congress measures were 
taken for the exclusion of Anarchists and, as far as 
possible, other disturbing elements from future Con- 
gresses. 

The next Congress was held in Paris in 1900, at the 
time of the Exhibition. It was due in 1899, but the 
German party, having failed to secure officially a longer 
term than three years for the interval between the 
Congresses, obtained by intrigue behind the scenes 
a prolongation of a year. The same tactics were 
adopted by the German party on more than one sub- 
sequent occasion. The chief feature of the Paris 
Congress of 1900 was the dissension between the sections 
of the French party, which had as its result a defective 
organization of the arrangements. In consequence 
the gathering, although well attended, was not as 
successful as some others have been. 

I may mention that, the week immediately preceding 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 153 

the Paris Congress of 1900, the German party held 
its own Congress at Mainz, at which I was also present. 
Here I made the interesting acquaintance of the Kapell- 
meister and composer Weissheimer, who was a friend 
of Wagner and is referred to with, for him, an unusual 
appreciation in his autobiography. Weissheimer, who 
conducted the opera at Mainz for many years, was 
a member of the Social Democratic party and took 
part in the Congress. At the close of the proceedings 
one evening, in reply to a question of mine respecting 
the best place to obtain genuine Rhenish wine, Weiss- 
heimer took us to a special Weinstuhe that he knew of, 
when more than one flagon of " Rhenish " was con- 
sumed — in fact, more perhaps than a stern moralist 
in these matters Uke my friend Hyndman would have 
approved. Weissheimer, I remember, was particularly 
pleased when I told him that Felix Moscheles, the son 
of Ignaz Moscheles, the celebrated pianist, by whom 
he had been taught in his youth, was, if not a declared 
Socialist, at least a Democrat, an Internationalist, and 
a strong anti-militarist. 

A very interesting Congress was that held at Amster- 
dam in 1904 (the Germans having again succeeded in 
postponing it for a year). It was on this occasion that 
the question of opportunism and the taking part by 
members of the Socialist Party in current politics was 
discussed, with the results already spoken of in the 
unification of the French party. The debates at this 
Congress issued in the passing of resolutions condemn- 
ing the participation of Socialists officially in existing 
State governments, and generally in " bourgeois 
politics." The Congress held at Stuttgart in 1907 
was memorable for the expulsion of Quelch from Wiir- 



154 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

temberg for his characterization of the diplomatic 
conference, then sitting at The Hague, on the peace 
question, as a " thieves' supper." It was also remark- 
able for the strong stand made by Gustave Herve on 
the question of patriotism and national military organi- 
zation — the same Herve who is now so enthusiastic a 
patriot. 

If we except the special Peace Congress called at 
Basel on the outbreak of the Balkan War, the last 
International Socialist Congress was that held at Copen- 
hagen in 1910, Here also the question of armaments 
and peace was largely to the fore, but in general the 
gathering, though successful in every way as a Congress, 
the arrangements of the Danish comrades having been 
altogether excellent, was not distinguished by any 
special features. The following Congress should have 
taken place at Vienna in 1913, but this time once more 
the German party insisted on having it put off for a 
year. All arrangements had been made for holding 
the gathering in Vienna in August of the fateful year 
1914, but the great world catastrophe intervened, and 
International Socialism was deprived of the possibility 
of making a united pronouncement on the question 
of international relations generally, and of the special 
circumstances that had led up to the European situation 
as it then stood in particular. This is much to be 
regretted, since had the Congress been held in 19 15 
according to the instructions given to the International 
Bureau at Copenhagen, the probabilities are it would 
have resulted at least in the clearing of the air on the 
general question of war, and on the attitude of the 
various Socialist parties towards it, in the event of 
hostilities arising. I know it may be said that in general 



FOREIGN SOCIALIST PERSONALITIES 155 

terms the question had already been dealt with at 
previous Congresses, but the terms were too general. 
Moreover, in the three years that had elapsed since 
the last Congress, that at Copenhagen, the international 
situation had considerably changed, and in a sense 
undeniably rendering essential a more detailed and 
more precise pronouncement on the eventuality of a 
great European war, for determining the practical 
attitude of the party on this all-important question. 



CHAPTER VII 

LITERARY WORK 

In writing these reminiscences, I have, as already 
stated in the preface, made it a rule to damp down the 
personal note as far as possible, and to avoid the ex- 
ample of Lord Herbert of Cherbury of giving prominence 
to my own valiant deeds. But, seeing they are after 
all personal reminiscences, it would seem out of place, 
and even pedantic, to suppress altogether all account 
of the individual reminiscencer's achievements, such 
as they are and what there are of them. In the present 
chapter, therefore, I am going frankly to talk about 
myself, so those not interested may pass it over. But 
what I have to chronicle I should premise are no glorious 
deeds of valour, but resolve themselves simply into a 
little modest literary work. 

My first excursions into the regions of print con- 
sisted in a few articles in obscure monthlies devoted 
to natural history, a subject on which at the time, 
being then in my early teens, I was very keen. It was 
some few years before I produced anything more. My 
next piece of literary output, so far as I can recollect, 
was in 1876, and was a result of my studies on the 
French Revolution, namely a little book in vindication 

of Jean Paul Marat. I returned to this subject, I 

156 



LITERARY WORK 157 

should say, over twenty years later at the suggestion 
of my friend Mr. Grant Richards, who published a 
life of Marat by me in the nineties of the last century. 
About the time of my first sketch of Marat's life an 
article from my pen on the subject appeared in the 
Gentleman's Magazine. Barring articles in periodicals 
and newspapers, as also the episode of my newspaper 
correspondentship in Berlin alluded to in an earlier 
chapter, my next literary effort was a translation of 
Kant's " Prolegomena to all Future Metaphysic " and 
his " Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science," 
with a life of Kant and an introduction to the " Critical 
Philosophy " prefixed, the latter occupying about a 
third of the whole volume, which was published in 
" Bohn's Philosophical Library." This was followed 
a year or two later by my " Handbook of the History 
of Philosophy," also in the same series, a book which 
was very well received and had a considerable success, 
as works on philosophy go, with the British public. 
Later on I published with the same firm (Messrs. Bell 
and Sons) a translation of a selection from Schopen- 
hauer's " Parerga and Paralipomena " under the title 
of " Schopenhauer's Essays," preceded by a life of 
Schopenhauer and a critical exposition of his philosophy. 
It was about the middle eighties that I began the 
publication of a sequence of popular works on Socialism 
for Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co.'s " Social Science 
Series." The first of them was " The Religion of 
Socialism," consisting of essays dealing with various 
aspects of Socialism. These, of course, are now a genera- 
tion old, and, addressed as they were to a public of over 
thirty years ago, their point of view and expression 
naturally may strike the reader of the present day 



158 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

as not being quite up to date. As to this, while main- 
taining in full the essential principles put forward in 
these earUer essays, I am prepared, of course, to admit 
that there are some things which from the present-day 
standpoint may appear over-emphasized, while there 
are others either omitted or from the same stand- 
point insufficiently elaborated. I already acknowledge 
this in my preface to the fifth edition (1901). And 
what I said then applies, of course, still more to-day. 
But the book has passed through so many editions 
that it may well be left as it is — always, of course, on 
the assumption that in essentials it still expresses the 
views of the author. The success of the " Religion 
of Socialism " led to the production of other books 
of a similar character and scope by myself and others. 
In fact, it practically gave a send-off to the " Social 
Science Series." ^ My own next contribution was the 
" Ethics of Socialism," the success of which was almost, 
if not quite, equal to that of the " Religion of Socialism," 
notwithstanding the fact that it was not, as in the 
former case, exclusively concerned with Socialism, 
containing three rather important essays on other 
subjects. Following this appeared a third volume of 
similar character entitled " Outlooks from the New 
Standpoint." This book had a fairly good sale, although, 
curiously enough, not nearly equal to that of the two 
former, in spite of the fact that it contained essays deal- 
ing with subjects more " topical " than either of them. 
During the anniversary years of the French Revo- 
lution I contributed my " Story of the French Revo- 
lution " to the same series. A little later I wrote for 
the Twentieth Century Press a short history of the 

' Now published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 



LITERARY WORK 159 

Commune of Paris of 1871. This little book, though 
scarcely more than a brochure, is, I believe, the only 
history of the Commune within the same compass in the 
English language. It was based largely on Lissagaray's 
exhaustive work on the subject. It is satisfactory to 
know that it circulated widely amongst English Social- 
ists. The same may be said of a pamphlet entitled 
" A New Catechism of Socialism," in which my late 
friend Harry Quelch and myself collaborated. The 
allusion in the title was to an old pamphlet published 
at the beginning of the English movement by J. L. 
Joynes called " A Socialist Catechism," now out of 
print. Our own brochure, consisting of some forty- 
four pages, was published by the Twentieth Century 
Press at twopence, and has had a circulation of many 
thousands. 

' The nineties saw the successive publication of my 
three volumes on the social side of the Reformation 
in Germany, bearing the respective titles of " German 
Society at the Close of the Middle Ages," " The Peasants' 
War," and " The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists." 
These three volumes contain an exhaustive history 
of certain sides of the Reformation period in Central 
Europe, such as is not to be found otherwise, I may 
venture to say, in the whole range of English historical 
literature. But although well reviewed, they never 
attained a second edition. Purely historical literature, 
like purely philosophical literature, has apparently no 
great public among the reading population of the 
British Islands, except where it connects itself with 
some popular interest of the day or some problem 
which happens to have come temporarily into 
prominence. 



160 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Shortly before the appearance of the first of the 
volumes last mentioned I published, also with Messrs. 
Sonnenschein, a small philosophical work entitled " The 
Problem of Reality," containing in a brief sketch 
suggestions for a philosophical reconstruction. This 
little book, while its theses were based on philosophic 
Idealism generally, was opposed to the current neo- 
Hegelian position, which was at that time still para- 
mount in English philosophy. About the same time I 
published another small volume, entitled " Outspoken 
Essays," dealing with historical and social subjects. 
During these early years of the nineties I also colla- 
borated with the late William Morris in the work we 
entitled " Socialism, its Growth and Outcome," which 
was also published (as a double volume) in Sonnen- 
schein's " Social Science Series." It claims to be a 
history of the development of the Socialistic idea, in 
its practical aspects, beginning with primitive Com- 
munism, tracing the decay of the communistic group 
system and the rise of Individualism, economical and 
otherwise, and the various fluctuations throughout 
history in respect to these two principles, leading up 
to the modern Socialist movement, as embodying con- 
sciously Socialism as the ideal of the future. The 
book, although it had a fair sale, has not passed with- 
out criticism from various sides. That it has its defects 
and weak points may be true, but I still contend that, 
taken as a whole, it is as adequate a statement of a 
big subject as could be compressed into the same 
compass. 

About this time I was called to the Bar at the Middle 
Temple, which I had joined some three years before. 
For a year or two after this I had some notion of actively 



LITERARY WORK 161 

following the legal profession, and took steps in that 
direction, but subsequently abandoned the idea. My 
time was thus left free for other studies and literary 
work. Continuing my record with regard to the latter, 
the new life of Marat already referred to was written 
at the end of the nineties, and reached a second edition 
two or three years after its publication. Early in the 
new century a volume of mixed contents was published 
by Grant Richards under the title " Essays in Socialism 
Old and New." It comprised most of the pieces con- 
tained in the " Outspoken Essays," which had appeared 
some ten years earlier and had gone out of print, and 
a number of new pieces. The above was followed by 
what I personally regard as my most important literary 
production, to wit, " The Roots of Reality." This 
book was based upon the conclusions put forward 
tentatively some years previously in the brief sketch 
before alluded to. " The Problem of Reality." The 
positions there laid down are in the later and much 
larger volume developed, corrected, and added to, 
and other problems dealt with. It is now out of print 
and awaiting a second and enlarged edition on the 
conclusion of the present war ; but as it stands, it labours 
under the disadvantage that its criticism of the Hegelian, 
or, as I have termed it, the " pallogistic " position in 
philosophy, is disproportionately emphasized in view 
of the fact of the changes that have taken place during 
the last ten years in the general outlook of speculative 
thought in this country. " Pragmatism," Bergson, and 
other influences quite foreign and even opposed to the 
Hegelian Pallogism or Intellectualism (as it is some- 
times called), have since become fashionable, and from 
the point of view of " The Roots of Reality " call for 

u 



162 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

a special criticism of their own. There are also other 
suggestions I have received as regards presentment 
and illustration, to the intent to render the positions 
advanced more readily understandable of the lay reader, 
and these also demand serious consideration in the 
revised edition, which the writer hopes in due time 
will see the light. 

After " The Roots of Reality " had appeared, I 
bethought me of a promise to my old friend William 
Morris, made not long before his death, to write a history 
of that, even to most students, little-known event at 
the close of the French Revolution, Gracchus Babeuf's 
" Conspiracy of the Equals." This undertaking I 
now endeavoured to fulfil to the best of my abiUty, 
and the result was the volume entitled " The Last 
Episode of the French Revolution " (Grant Richards), 
which appeared in 191 1. The book, though well 
enough reviewed, had the sale one expects from purely 
historical monographs having little or no bearing on 
current events or practical interest for the present time. 
It remains, however, as the only English study on the 
subject obtainable, even Bronterre O'Brien's trans- 
lation of the contemporary Buonarotti's work having 
been out of print for more than half a century. 

This was followed in 1912 by another volume of 
essays, entitled " Essays on Men, Mind, and Morals," 
comprising some previously published and some un- 
published pieces, among the former the article that 
originally appeared in the International Journal of 
Ethics on the SociaUst view of the fundamental 
principles of morality, and my reply in the Fortnightly 
Reviexe/ to Dr. Beattie Crozier's attack on Socialism. 
In November 1913 appeared " The Fraud of Feminism," 



LITERARY WORK 168 

just after Sir Almroth Wright's " Unexpurgated Case 
against Woman Suffrage." In this Httle book of less 
than two hundred pages I claim to have disposed of 
the arguments (save the mark !) , so constantly heard 
and so seldom contradicted or refuted, of the advocates 
of Feminism. I have clearly drawn the distinction 
between Political Feminism (as I have termed it) and 
Sentimental Feminism. The Political Feminist claims 
for women equal political and social rights with men. 
The Sentimental Feminist, under the sham pretence of 
chivalry, claims impunity for women from the un- 
pleasant consequences of their own conduct. Between 
the two, and they are usually combined in the same 
person, we arrive at the delightful conclusion that 
women have a right to claim an equal position with 
men wherever it suits their book, i.e. in all honourable, 
agreeable, and lucrative positions, and at the same 
time to demand special treatment from that accorded 
to men whenever " equality " would spell unpleasant 
consequences for themselves — a charming doctrine truly 
for the female sex, in which the " equality " appears 
with its picturesque chivalry " all on one side." 

My efforts in this book, as in previous essays, to ex- 
pose the claptrap and lies of the advocates of Feminism 
have naturally not been to the taste of the Suffragette 
sisterhood, who have lost no opportunity of venting 
their petty spite in feeble efforts to say nasty things. 
I give just one instance of this. In the Spring of 1915 
appeared a volume called forth by the war, entitled 
" German Culture, Past and Present." ' It consisted 
largely of excerpts from my previous volumes on the 
social side of the Reformation in Germany, with twa 

' George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 



164 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

concluding chapters on Modern Germany. The book 
was very favourably received by the Press generally, 
but there was one dissentient voice in a certain London 
morning daily of strong Feminist tendencies, wherein 
appeared a notice in which every one detected the hand 
of the Suffragette. The lady in question, who, of course, 
wrote under the veil of anonymity, headed her article 
" Mr. Bax in extremis ! " (she probably meant in 
excelsis !). After a few words of general attack on 
the ground that all the contents were not new, she 
proceeded to single out and quote from the last chapter 
a couple of plain-sailing English sentences, upon which 
she pronounced her ipse dixit that the style was " bad " 
and the thought " jejune." Now, what does the reader 
think these two " bad " and " jejune " sentences pur- 
ported to say ? Simply that in the humble judgment 
of the author the influence of the writings of Nietzsche 
on Modern Germany was not as powerful as some 
writers on the war had represented. Of course, I may 
have been wrong in my view as to this, but I submit 
that to describe such an opinion, whether right or wrong, 
precisely as "jejune" indicates a singular ignorance 
of the correct use of the English language as possible 
with advanced womanhood. As a matter of fact, 
these last two chapters of the book in question were 
written somewhat hurriedly, and in consequence one 
or two real if trivial errors had crept into them, which, 
unimportant as they were in themselves, were such as 
in the hands of a skilful critic bent on being " nasty " 
might (especially in a short notice) have been effec- 
tively exploited against me. These, however, my 
female critic had evidently neither the brains nor the 
knowledge to take advantage of. Accordingly, the 



LITERARY WORK 165 

foolish young woman who aimed at smartness 
achieved siUiness. 

This incident, which might hardly seem worthy of 
mention in itself, is nevertheless otherwise significant 
inasmuch as it betrays a type of mental attitude 
prevalent in the younger present generation, and 
especially in the youthful " emancipated " female. It 
is the morbid craving after literary fireworks — the 
dread of the commonplace become a disease. Every 
sentence that does not wrap up an epigram, every 
expression of opinion that does not wear the air of a 
paradox, is voted dull and vapid. These fatuous 
would-be up-to-date young prigs seem, moreover, obli- 
vious of the everyday fact that it is often necessary 
in controversy and otherwise to remind an opponent, 
or even the casual reader, of what ought to be obvious. 
There are plenty of people, for that matter, with whom 
it is necessary on occasion to call their attention to 
the fact that two and two make four. But, even apart 
from this, the demand of priggish up-to-datism that 
every paragraph, if it is to be worth the trouble of 
reading, must enshrine an uninterrupted series of 
epigrams or paradoxes, is silly and insufferable. In 
fact, the overdoing of the epigrammatic and paradoxical 
may very easily run to seed in a claptrap and a ban- 
ality of its own. As pointed out in an earlier chapter, 
it may fairly be doubted whether Shaw, able man 
though he is, does not sometimes overshoot the mark 
in this respect. Talking of Shaw reminds me, by the 
way, of an incident bearing on the above. On my 
remarking to Shaw one day that our mutual friend 
J. L. Joynes had observed to me that he should not 
particularly care to have him for a companion in a 



166 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

long tour, Shaw replied, " Well, I can't reciprocate 
the sentiment, for I think Joynes would suit me very 
well as a travelling companion ; but I know what he 
meant : I dare say I should be always trying to say 
smart things, and this after a time might tend to become 
boresome." So it is. Excessive wit may weary, just 
as excessive sweetness may satiate. If there is but 
one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, there are 
likewise not many steps from the brilliant to the banal. 
And the steps are counted in the overloading of writing 
or discourse with points and effects — and this however 
good these may be in themselves. 

As regards my literary activity, I have always been 
at the disadvantage of not having the faculty possessed 
by many of expanding a subject I am writing upon 
indefinitely. I have the scheme of what I conceive to 
be essential in the exposition of my subject, and I write 
up to it. But I have a difficulty in filling out beyond 
this to meet the exigencies of printers and publishers. 
The above is an undoubted drawback, since the dilution 
of one's subject with words and style is what in many 
cases the public wants. On the other hand, the facility 
in reeling out verbal material has its disadvantages 
even in historical writing, although not nearly so much 
as in philosophical. Even where the material is not 
purely verbal, but to a large extent real, there is always 
a danger of overweighting, so that the reader is apt 
to get into the position of not being able to see the 
wood for the trees. The salient points which are 
essential are apt to get confused in a mass of relatively, 
and sometimes more than relatively, unimportant 
detail. The observance of proportion in the subject- 
matter of serious work, though obviously an essential 



LITERARY WORK 167 

in all such writing, is as often as not failed of attain- 
ment even with men of ability. In historical writing 
it is exceedingly difficult to steer between the Scylla 
of bareness and sketchiness and the Charybdis of over- 
weighting with incidental material, which leaves con- 
fusion as to the general import of events in the mind 
of the reader. This applies, of course, more to popular 
historical writing than to works of scholarship designed 
for students, where a certain amount of overweighting 
is scarcely avoidable. Of the latter class of work 
Gibbon is supposed to be the model in this respect. 
But it may fairly be doubted whether Gibbon's hand- 
ling of his material in the " DecUne and Fall," as 
regards proportion, is not excelled by Hodgson in 
his " Invaders of Italy." 

Where, however, the reeling out of an immense mass 
of verbal product is most dangerous to effectiveness 
is in highly abstract subjects, especially philosophy. 
Here diffuseness is absolutely fatal to the leaving of 
any strong impression on the mind of the reader. This 
is especially noticeable in certain American writers, 
notably Professor Baldwin, whose three volumes 
" Thought and Things " are devoted to material which 
on a liberal computation might easily be got into one. 
Other American writers of philosophical treatises are 
guilty of the same indiscretion, to wit, of drowning 
the essentials of their thought in portentous volumes 
of closely printed pages which look imposing but 
leave little impression on the reader. In philosophy, 
more than in anything else, it is desirable to avoid 
diffuseness and overexpansion, not only by mere 
verbiage, but by the introduction of a mass of detail 
and discussion of fifth-rate problems on the fringe of 



168 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the main subject. One sometimes finds this over- 
elaboration in works of real genius and even of epoch- 
making character. For example, the " Kapital " of 
Marx is not wholly free therefrom. It is, indeed, more 
particularly noticeable in the posthumous second and 
third volumes, although, especially as regards the third 
volume, since it was left by its author in a condition 
of notes and jottings merely, it would be manifestly 
unfair to saddle these shortcomings altogether on Marx 
himself. 

Returning to my own literary work, I may mention 
that it has been my fortune to have what we are told 
is the sincerest form of flattery, namely, imitation, 
more than once practised upon me. The authors who 
have done this have at the same time been careful 
not to acknowledge the source of their indebtedness. 
Thus a year or so after the publication of my little 
sketch " The Problem of Reality " appeared a work 
by an eminent British statesman of philosophic pre- 
tensions, which contained a criticism of the Hegelian 
Pallogism, especially with reference to its modern 
expressions in the works of Thomas Hill Green and 
others, which was practically identical with my own. 
Conclusions arrived at independently, the reader will 
say ! Possibly, but the similarity of the argument, 
and even of its expression, seemed singularly close, 
and for me the more significant in view of the fact 
that I had some grounds for believing the distin- 
guished philosophic statesman in question might not 
have been altogether without knowledge of my own 
humble and insignificant effort. 

Again, in the works of a well-known popular essayist 
I could point to paragraphs which are almost identical 



LITERARY WORK 169 

reproductions of passages of my own. Another well- 
known writer on social and economic subjects, in a 
work of his published a year or two ago, devotes a long 
final chapter to the elaboration, without acknowledg- 
ment, of my speculation as to the evolution of a 
social consciousness presented in " The Roots of Reality " 
(pp. 126-36). I am not making a personal grievance 
out of these things, but I may say that as a general 
principle I cannot approve of the literary morality which 
does not hesitate to " lift " ideas, and in some cases 
even turns of expression, from an isolated thinker, a 
thing no one would dare to do hi the case of a man 
holding an academic chair or otherwise very much in 
the public view. In the first case the " lifting " may 
pass unobserved ; hi the second, those who practised 
it would be likely to be " dropped upon " at once. 

An amusing, because so flagrant, a case of the false 
attribution of an idea in the interest apparently of 
the academic " guild " in general is the cool reference 
by a distinguished American professor of philosophy 
of the term " alogical," in the sense in which I have 
used it, to Professor Bergson. Professor Bergson 
himself, who, in spite of his eminence in the world of 
modern philosophic thought, is personally the most 
modest of men, told me in conversation that, while 
approving of my use of the word, he had not seen it, 
certainly in the sense used by me, before he read 
" The Roots of ReaHty." 

All I have to say upon this (question of property 
in ideas is that if the provenance of ideas or literary 
expression is to be acknowledged at all, it should be 
acknowledged equally all round without distinction of 
persons. To acknowledge, perhaps with effusiveness, 



170 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

indebtedness for a thought when its author holds a pro- 
fessorship or is prominently before the public eye in 
other ways, and to reproduce a thought without a word 
of acknowledgment of its source where its author holds 
no distinguished post or is generally less in the public 
view, I think it will be admitted by most impartial 
persons savours of a certain degree of meanness. Yet 
there seems to be a notion abroad that the works of 
such a one may be used as an open quarry and their 
contained ideas fully appropriated, the original author 
being conveniently ignored. 

Setting aside the purely philosophical issues dis- 
cussed in " The Roots of Reahty," which are too tech- 
nical to be entered into at length in a book of this 
nature, some readers might be inclined to ask what 
1 consider as my special contribution to modern 
thought on the subjects on which I have written. It 
is difficult to answer this question satisfactorily. 
But among the few small services my work may have 
helped is the calling attention to the distinction 
between the morality of early society, with its basis 
of communal or group feeling and thinking, and the 
introspective morality, sometimes called the Ethics of 
Inwardness, based on the individual and his relation 
as a spiritual being, considered more or less per se, to a 
deity who is the supreme power of the Universe. In 
the first case the basis of morality and religion is custom 
and traditionally prescribed action or ritual, the ques- 
tion of individual motive hardly entering into it ; in 
the second, the inner motives and feelings of the indi- 
vidual occupy the foremost place. I think I may 
claim, without pretending to be the actual protagonist 
of this idea, to which modern anthropology has been 



LITERARY WORK 171 

leading up for many years, to have been the first popu- 
larly to emphasize the distinction in connexion with 
the light it throws upon the doctrine and aspirations 
of the Socialism of to-day. The distinction between 
the communal thought or feeling by which the man 
was absolutely merged in the group — clan, tribe, or 
people — before individuality or logical thought, in our 
sense, had arisen ; and that of civilization, which meant, 
as one of its chief features, the development of the 
individual as such, and his freeing from the ties and 
order of ideas which identified him with the group 
under earUer conditions of society, it was always my 
endeavour to impress upon the thinking section of 
Socialists and of those interested in social problems. 
This point, that I have since a generation ago, in a bare 
and, I wilUngly admit, inadequate form, endeavoured 
to popularize among my contemporaries, has of late 
years, with perhaps certain modifications and on a 
more extended scale, been worked out from another 
side in a most original manner and with considerable 
learning by the new Cambridge school of anthropo- 
logists. The fact that classical scholarship has largely 
been employed to this end, and the evolution of ancient 
Greek society taken as typical, I hold to be no disad- 
vantage, but rather the contrary. Useful and indeed 
indispensable as the comparative method of the inves- 
tigation of the conditions of existing savage and bar- 
baric communities may be, Greece nevertheless lies in 
the main stream of human evolution, and must there- 
fore, with the other self-evolving civilized races of the 
ancient world, represent the type of social progress in 
a manner which the existing survivals of early society in 
outlying parts of the world do not. The latter may 



172 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

be compared to eddies and side-streams of the main 
course of human development, which do not neces- 
sarily represent in their present conditions the exact 
counterpart of any past phase in the evolution of the 
historic races, however much they may afford us illus- 
trations of, and clues to, the general course of that 
evolution. 

There are plenty of other points which I have 
endeavoured to bring out in my literary work. The 
above I only give as a specimen of an important one. 
I am aware that I have the misfortune, for the rest, 
while able perhaps sometimes to throw out ideas worthy 
of consideration, in a bare and sketchy manner, to lack 
the equally necessary capacity of working them out 
in detail and thereby demonstrating their truth. I am 
perfectly willing to admit this as a defect ; whether 
a defect of my qualities must depend upon the decision 
of others and the public generally as to whether I have 
any. With this observation I may fairly conclude the 
present, I trust not too long, chapter on my own literary 
doings and sufferings. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE IN LONDON AT THE END 
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

The decade of the nineties has already receded from 
us sufficiently to become interesting as a retrospect. 
Though the change in English thought and ways of 
looking at life, as regards what had gone before it, was 
not nearly so profound or far-reaching as that the 
early eighties had to show, yet the nineties had none 
the less a character of theii own. The ideas and move- 
ments which had struck root in the eighties were 
growing up and sprouting out in various directions, 
but it is less with the intellectual than with the social 
life of that period that I propose to deal in this chapter. 
In the course of the year 1889 I joined a well-known 
club in the West End of London, and the following year 
I took up my residence in the Temple, as already men- 
tioned in an earlier chapter. The club I joined was a 
large one, with a membership embracing all sorts and 
conditions of men. Moreover, it was a political club, 
and included at that time men who have since played 
a prominent part in the public life of the country. 
Journalists not unnaturally bulked largely among the 
membership Men of law, some of them not wanting 
in eminence, were also among the habitues of the smoking- 
room. Living as I was by myself in chambers at the 

'75 



174 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

time, as is the wont in such cases, I tended to drift 
into the club during the latter part of the day. Here 
I mixed with the other habitual frequenters, among 
whom there were some noteworthy types which have 
not failed to impress themselves upon my memory. 
There was a barrister with a sufficiently good practice 
who got the credit of being remiss in the matter of 
standing drinks. This reminds me, by the way, of one 
notable difference which twenty odd years have made 
in one at least of the social customs of club-life. In 
the early nineties, giving and accepting of alcoholic 
refreshment played a nmch greater part in the social 
intercourse of club smoking-rooms, as indeed it did 
also in life outside clubs, than it does nowadays. No 
one who remembers the time, even as late as that 
referred to, can fail to appraise at its true value the 
cant which declaims against drink as being the special 
curse of the England of to-day. Even from twenty 
to twenty-five years ago there was at least twice as 
much alcohol consumed as there was, let us say, in 
the summer of 1914, i.e. before the special war re- 
strictions on liquor came into force. If we go farther 
back, o± course, the difference is still more striking. 
The days depicted by Dickens in " Pickwick " are 
astounding to the modern man. 

But to return to the club. There was the 
youngish gentleman, undergraduate of the London 
University, who did a little journalism and acted 
on occasion as electoral agent and canvasser for 
party candidates whom he approved. Having a 
little means of his own, he did this work for the 
most part gratuitously. A constant inmate of the 
club at this time, he was a well-known character. 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE 175 

Especially was he famous for the air of blaseness and 
ennui which he usually assumed. The idea ever 
present in his mind appeared to be that to seem bored 
was rather " tony." Hence the idea of boredom 
occupied a considerable place in his thought. It was in 
vain I pointed out to him that excessive sensitiveness 
to bores and boredom had never been a characteristic of 
the greatest minds ; that, on the contrary, it was usually 
the mark of a mind without resilience and without 
formative power of its own. The really great mind, 
save under great provocation, is, generally speaking, 
tolerant in this respect, and certainly above being 
bored by every commonplace man it meets. The 
idea of boredom still remained an obsession of this 
gentleman. It was not so much that he was bored 
as that he thought he ought to appear bored. 

Another among the characters of the club was the 
middle-aged Irish doctor, staunch patriot and ardent 
Catholic, with somewhat uncouth manners, who was 
given to laying down the law on all questions. He 
was generally regarded as somewhat of a crank, and 
not the least by his own countrymen. There were 
also among the members those of the House of Israel, 
the mention of which fact recalls a humorous sally 
of a well-known member of the present Parliament, 
recently knighted. The incident was as follows : The 
gentleman in question was in conversation one day 
in the smoking-room with a barrister of the Jewish 
race. Sitting in a group not far off. was an elderly 
club-member, since dead, who in loud tones was heard 
to express the opinion that there were too many of 
" these damn'd Jews " in the club. The remark, of 
course, had no reference to the Jewish gentleman with 



176 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

whom our M.P. was speaking, whose presence a short 
distance off had probably not been observed by our 
anti-Semitic friend. However, it reached the ears of 
the former, whose indignation was at once aroused 
to the extent of his getting up and going over to 
remonstrate with the insulter, as he deemed him, of his 
racial colleagues in the club, whose remarks he took 
as a personal affront to himself. An altercation ensued 
on the merits of the Hebrew, which was threatening 
to become hot, when our M.P. interposed with the 
observation that he thought the whole difference be- 
tween his friend and the old gentleman was due to a 
misunderstanding ; if he had heard aright, he under- 
stood the latter's objection to refer, not to Jews in 
general either within or without the club, but only 
a, special class of Jews, to wit, damn'd Jews. " Now," 
he said, " we none of us approve of damn'd Jews." 
His friend the speaker had expressed the opinion that 
there were some of this class of Jew in the club. If 
there were, he would be the last to defend them, but 
although he had numerous acquaintances among the 
Jewish members of the club, he could not recall a single 
" damn'd Jew " among them. Therefore he hoped that 
the gentleman whose observation had given offence 
to his Jewish friend might have spoken from hearsay 
and be mistaken in his opinion. Thus the oil of 
humorous banter was poured on the troubled waters of 
anti-Semitism. Another Jewish club-story. A member 
of unmistakably Hebrew physiognomy, but who ob- 
jected to be af&ched as a Jew in the smoking-room, was 
present when one of the chasseurs was calling out as 
" wanted " the name of Mr. Solomon Isaacs. The 
member in question was evidently not there, as no 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE 177 

response came, but the boy, zealous in the execution 
of his duty, seeing our friend of the Hebrew countenance 
sitting with his circle in a corner of the room, went up 
to him and addressed him, " Are you Mr. Isaacs, sir ? " 
" No, boy; do you take me for a bloody Jew? " re- 
torted the irate son of Israel. This anecdote illus- 
trates the curious objection many members of the 
Jewish race have to acknowledge their racial origin, 
which may possibly have something to do with the fact 
that in all countries the Jew is the most aggressive 
patriot and jingo for his adopted or acquired nationality 
which that country can boast. In every nation the 
Jew is to be found on the side of the most fire-eating 
section of national chauvinists. 

As I have above said, the journalist fraternity 
bulked largely in the membership of my club. Now, 
it is very curious to observe the type of mentality 
which work on the daily Press seems to attract, or 
develop, or possibly both. The pressman, while seldom 
a scholar or a man of depth of knowledge or of thought, 
is yet seldom ignorant or stupid. The intelligence of 
the average man of Fleet Street is aptly covered by 
the word " smart." He is a promiscuous gatherer of 
knowledge as he goes through life, as distinguished 
from the systematic student. The conditions of his 
working career of course lead to this — partly, at least ; 
partly also there is no doubt the profession of journal- 
ism attracts to itself men of an alert type of mind, 
whose interests are easily awakened to almost any 
subject, but who are yet without either the depth or 
the range which is the result of intellectual staying 
power. Of course, there are exceptions. There are 
men of scholarly type and scholarly attainments in 

12 



178 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the ranks of journalism on the one side, as there are 
men of crass ignorance and dullness on the other. But 
as a rule the successful journalist, the journalist who 
gets plenty to do and makes his way in the profession, 
is neither of the one nor the other, but a man who 
has the capacity for getting up any subject at command 
to the extent which is necessary to dilate upon it with- 
out making gross blunders, and with an air of authority 
suggesting untold reserves of knowledge behind. This 
is very noticeable when one takes up the books written 
by journalists. I have known men who have spoken 
to me on certain departments of general history, or 
on the histories of special countries, and who showed 
by their questions that the subject was quite new to 
them, and that in fact their knowledge concerning it 
was of the most elementary kind, and yet who a few 
months afterwards produced a book which professed 
glibly to instruct the public on the matter as though 
from the chair of a university. The man who can do 
this is the type of the successful journalist. Never- 
theless, as above remarked, while you have on the one 
hand the exceptional journalist who is also a scholar 
and a man of depth as well as width of thought and 
reading, you have also on the other the exceptional 
pressman of elementary ignorance. A specimen of the 
latter, when the Moroccan question was to the fore, 
some few years ago, seriously asked me whether Morocco 
was north or south of Spain ! This man, bien entendu, 
did not belong to the much despised tribe of mere 
reporters, but was an accredited pressman connected 
with a reputable London " daily " ! Now, all these 
types of the great profession were represented in my 
club at the time to which this chapter specially refers, 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE ItO 

and many a pleasant hour have I spent in their 
society. 

Amongst the men who added distinction to the club 
was a well-known author of books on English economic 
history, an Oxford professor and member of Parliament, 
long since dead ; also two eminent authorities on Roman 
Law, one of whom is no longer living, and the other 
is still a member of the club, and not only living, but 
working hard at intervals on an edition of an early 
Greek text of the Justinian Institutes, with all the 
careful industry of a Scottish man of learning. I 
should not omit to mention also the distinguished- 
looking member of the clerical profession, the author 
of a popular but none the less scholarly work on Romano- 
Jewish history. He is one of the widest-read men 
on the subject of early Christian antiquities that I 
know, the other two being a Privy Councillor, the 
author of numerous works on the origin and early 
history of Christianity, also a member of the club, 
and Mr. Joseph McCabe (not a member), whose labours 
in this direction are equally famous. But it would 
be impossible to recall all the men of eminence in their 
several departments who have been members of the 
club in question. It is a club which, without claiming 
to be in any way " select " in the ordinary sense of 
the word, admirably does the work of a clearing-house 
for a considerable variety of men of political, social, 
and intellectual aims and interests of diverse character. 
Its catholicity in the types of its membership has 
always given, and does still give, occasion to the 
enemy to blaspheme or at least to speak disrespectfully 
of it as of a haunt of the philistine. Nevertheless, 
as I contend, it has from the beginning served, and 



180 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

still serves, a useful and perhaps unique purpose in 
the life of modern London. 

Life in the Temple in the decade of the nineties, 
the time, that is, when I was residing there, had a well- 
marked character of its own. The Middle Temple, 
which was my Inn, with its old Elizabethan Hall and 
relics, its Vandyke Charles the First, its silver tankard 
foi loving-cup, its snuff-box made of the wood of the 
Armada, as alleged, has an unfailing charm for most 
of its members. When I was there, there was an aged 
butler, such as might have made a figure for Dickens 
or Thackeray. Many were the stories told of this worthy 
and of his ways and means of enriching himself at 
the expense of the members. Some Middle Templers 
may recall his celebrated " old beer," of which by some 
means or other he had acquired a special cask, and 
which he used on occasion to dole out to the various 
" messes " after dinner in Hall. It was certainly the 
finest English ale that I have ever tasted. This curious 
human relic, whose object in life seemed to be perquisites, 
had been connected throughout his career with the 
legal profession, as servant to judges, as almoner in 
the Inns of Court, or what not. He regarded himself, 
as was very evident from his bearing and conversa- 
tion, as an essential, if humble, limb of the law. He 
is now long dead, and the memory of him has probably 
begun to fade among the frequenters of the Middle 
Temple Hall. 

Few of the men who haunted the precincts of the 
Middle Temple in the nineties are to be found there 
now. Twenty years have left their mark on the Temple 
as elsewhere. The jealousies between the briefless and 
the briefed doubtless continue, though the human 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE 181 

material changes. From among the numerous barristers 
whom I encountered during my residence in the Temple, 
one or two have impressed themselves upon my memory 
from their having come to a tragic and untimely end. 
There was poor ^neas Macintosh — as the name im- 
plies, of Scottish Highland descent — who was originally 
intended for the Army, but who left the military career 
on a point of conscience after reading Spielhagen's 
novel, " Problematische Naturen," and took to the 
Bar. In him was present the type of the traditional 
Highland gentleman. He was courageous, of marked 
courtesy of manner, with a strong touch of old Highland 
Keltic superstition. I remember that after the death 
of a girl with whom he had had to do, he was troubled, 
or at least impressed, with the visits of a black cat to 
the window-sill of his bedroom on successive morn- 
ings, and was evidently disposed to connect the black 
cat in an occult manner with the deceased girl. He 
worked hard as a barrister, and at one time had a fair 
practice, but some years later, for reasons of health, he 
went to Canada, where he was buried in a snowdrift 
and never seen or heard of again. 

Another Kelt, this time an Irishman and a man of 
a very different mould from the last mentioned, whom 
I saw much of during the last years of my residence 
at the Temple, was Michael Farelly, an amiable, feck- 
less, thriftless person. He was always financially more 
or less on his beam-ends. Never very successful in his 
practice at the Bar, Farelly emigrated to South Africa 
some two or three years before the Boer War broke 
out. He seems to have played a somewhat doubtful 
role in the events which preceded the war. After 
going to Pretoria as an avowed friend and adviser in 



182 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the Boer cause, and failing to obtain the entire con- 
fidence of Paul Kriiger and the other leaders, he went 
off on the other side. The book he published in the 
course of the war seems to afford documentary illustra- 
tion of his double-sidedness. In a chapter dealing with 
the causes of the war, evidently written when he was 
hoping to be taken into the service of the Transvaal 
Government, after giving a good and, indeed, unanswer- 
able statement of the Boer case, a final paragraph, 
apparently written just before going to press, is clumsily 
tacked on to what it is plain was originally intended 
to be the end of the chapter. This, while ignoring the 
whole of the previous argument, crudely sides with 
the aggressive Imperialist policy of Great Britain 
against the Dutch Republics. Farelly came over to 
England for a few weeks after the conclusion of peace, 
but I never met him again. He returned, after his 
brief sojourn in this country, to South Africa, where 
he shortly after died. Farelly was not without his 
good qualities, notably a certain Irish openheartedness, 
but financial embarrassments apparently drove him, as 
they have driven manj^ others, into tortuous courses. 

Before leaving the subject of my residence in the 
Temple, it may be interesting to mention that among 
the visitors to my chambers was the composer Leon- 
cavallo, who one evening, shortly before the first per- 
formance of his " Pagliacci " at Co vent Garden, came 
and played over on the piano for me the score of the 
new opera. 

In 1897 I gave up my chambers in the Temple, 
having married a second time, after some years of 
widowerhood. My wife was the daughter of a 
Thuringian physician, 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE 183 

The great political feature at the end of the nineties 
was the intrigues of the mining magnates of the Trans- 
vaal to bring about the conquest of the country by 
Great Britain in the interests of their financial oligarchy, 
which culminated in the outbreak of war in the Autumn 
of 1899. As is well-known, practically the whole of 
the Radical and Socialist elements in the country were 
on the side of the Boer Republics. The present writer 
did his share in the agitation of the ensuing years. We 
all felt at the time bitterly ashamed of our nationality, 
and were most of us furiously antipatriotic, as British 
patriotism was then understood. I remember a group 
of us subscribed for a wreath to place on the bust of 
Kriiger at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The Dutch 
Consul in Paris, who I believe was a strong Tory and 
individualist, objecting to the declaration on the red 
ribbon of the wreath, to the effect that it was a tribute 
to the righteousness of the Boer cause in its resistance 
to the crime initiated by a gang of financial capitalists, 
had it removed. We appealed, however, to Dr. Leyds, 
who was then in Paris, and got it reinstated. Subse- 
quent events, and notably the great times through 
which we have been passing lately, have obliterated 
to a considerable extent the memory of the South 
African War and the bitterness of feeling it engendered. 
It is well, however, for our national pride to recall the 
fact that it is not only the German people who can 
allow themselves by a little beating of the " jingo " 
patriotic drum to be made the tools of an infamous 
gang with influence in high places, in perpetrating or 
abetting a hideous and abominable crime. The scoun- 
drels of Johannesburg and London who machined the 
South African War in 1899 ^.re not intrinsically a whit 



184 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

better than the scoundrels in Berlin and Vienna who 
machined the European War of 1914. The difference 
is one of the magnitude in the issues of the crime, rather 
than in the intentions or acts of those guilty in bringing 
it about. It would be disastrous indeed if the result 
of the World War should be to increase the pompous 
self-righteousness of the British race and to blind the 
better part of the nation to the fact that profit-hungry 
capitaUsm, aggression, and militarism are intrinsically 
the same, and work the same evil results, in all peoples 
alike. 

The end of the nineties and the opening of the twen- 
tieth century gave rise to the seemingly inevitable 
dispute as to the year from which the new century 
was to be reckoned as starting. The majority of the 
disputants were, if I remember rightly, in favour of 
1 90 1 as being the first year of the century, in spite of 
the fact of scientific authorities such as the late Lord 
Kelvin opting for 1900. That this latter view is 
the only possibly correct one, I must confess, is to me 
so obvious that I can hardly conceive of any person of 
sense and education taking the opposite one. The 
century obviously begins with the first hour of the 
first year and not with the first hour of the second year. 
The cardinal number of the current year is plainly 
that of the last completed year. It is the ordinal 
number which gives you the real position of the year 
in question. Thus a man on his fortieth birthday, let 
us say, is properly deemed to be just entering upon 
his forty-first year, and this notwithstanding the fact 
that he will continue to be reckoned forty years of age 
until his next birthday, i.e. the completion of his forty- 
first year, when, though " cardinally " forty-one, he will 



CLUB AND TEMPLE LIFE 185 

be " ordinally " in his forty-second year until his follow- 
ing birthday, and so on. A child when it is born 
enters upon the first year of its life. It does not begin 
its first year after it is one year old. The conclusion 
is obvious as regards the age of the so-called Christian 
Era itself. With the ist of January 1900, by a parity of 
reasoning, it is clear that the Christian Era as a measure 
of time entered upon the 1901st year of its existence ; 
in other words, on the ist of January 1900 the first 
year of the new century began, though of course it 
was not completed until the ist of January 1901. 
It is indeed astonishing that this perfectly plain and 
obvious piece of arithmetic should not have been 
grasped by large numbers of persons, who were deceived 
by the cardinal number of the completed year i into 
regarding it as the ordinal or first year of the century. 
In this, as in so many other cases, the popular mind was 
deceived by a false analogy. It treated a measure of 
time having a beginning and ending as a concrete 
object in space irrespective of time. I have thought 
it worth while to devote a few remarks to this question, 
keenly debated as it was at the junction of the two 
centuries, inasmuch as, comparatively unimportant 
though it is, it aptly illustrates the stupidity of the 
average intelligence, and its inabihty accurately to 
gauge anything involving a little effort of thought 
discrimination. At the same time it shows its readi- 
ness to be led astray by a false analogy, provided it 
offers but the most superficial semblance of plausibility. 
It would scarcely be believed that this absurd con- 
troversy engendered so much heat at the time that 
the matter came once or twice before the police courts 
in the form of assault cases, one gentleman having 



186 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

tried, or at least threatened, to throw his opponent 
on this burning question out at the door of the railway 
carriage in which they were sitting. 

Altogether, the decade of the nineties had a character 
of its own, although not so strongly marked by new 
departures as that of the eighties. It continued, with 
certain modifications, the movements of the eighties, 
while adding little substantially to those movements. 
In its human element, the types entering upon man- 
hood or womanhood during the nineties show little 
essential difference from those produced by the previous 
decade, beyond perhaps that increasing tendency to 
blaseness which was enshrined in the current phrase 
of the time — fin de siecle. The " decadence " of the 
life and point of view of the cultured middle-classes 
of the nineties was very pronounced, and was not con- 
fined, as was the " aestheticism " of the eighties, to a 
comparatively narrow circle of those who made a 
special pose of it. A general atmosphere of " decadence" 
seemed to pervade the intellectual middle-class circles 
of the decade in question, apart from conscious affec- 
tation. This, although it died down, or at least became 
modified, after the opening of the new century, never- 
theless left its general mark upon English society, 
amid the rise of other movements and interests, until 
the outbreak of the World War in August 1914, and had 
a strong repercussion in new fashions in art, especially 
in painting and music. Bizarrerie and incoherence 
were the signs-manual of this movement. . 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MENTAL OUTLOOK OF THE ENGLAND OF 
TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 

Writing as I now am, while the great European War 
is as yet unfinished, in speaking of the England of to-day 
I am perhaps hardly quite accurate. In due strictness 
I should have said the England of Midsummer 1914. 
But inasmuch as no new development has as yet arisen, 
the fact that the great wave of the war influences has 
for a moment submerged all other issues would hardly 
justify us in assuming that below this wave the ways 
of looking at things, at the period immediately pre- 
ceding the war, do not still subsist, although lor the 
moment obscured. That the years of the war will 
leave their profound mark on the British character, 
and especially on its attitude towards practical social 
and political issues, I regard as a certainty. But the 
change wrought by the war will probably mark its 
full measure some years after the conclusion of peace, 
and meanwhile the mental attitude, at least in theo- 
retical matters, that obtained in the Summer of 1914 
will maintain itself in essentials perhaps for a generation 
to come as the groundwork of the national world- view. 
I speak of " national world-view " as it is convenient and 

more germane to these reminiscences to regard these 

187 



188 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

manifestations of modern thought as they express 
themselves in this country and as coloured by its habits 
and traditions, although of course, strictly speaking, 
there is nothing essential in modern types of thought 
that is purely provincial or national and not more 
or less common to the whole of civilized humanity, 
i.e. to all Europe and its colonies, including, of course, 
America, and not omitting Japan. But, as above said, 
it belongs to this work to deal more especially with 
the movements of thought of to-day and of the past 
generation as manifested in the English-speaking race, 
and especially in Great Britain itself. The temperament 
of the Anglo-Saxon race, moral and intellectual, has 
undoubtedly something peculiarly its own. This has 
become evident ever since the close of the Middle Ages, 
and it remained notably true till the end of the mid- 
Victorian period, as it is termed. Even now, notwith- 
standing the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the last, 
and especially the current generation, it is a fact which 
has not lost its significance. 

I have already dealt in earlier chapters with the 
rise and progress of the Socialist movement in Great 
Britain, and this, therefore, need not detain us here. 
What I propose to deal with in this chapter is the actual 
position of English popular thought — in short, of current 
opinion — towards certain religious, ethical, civic, and 
aesthetic questions as contrasted with two generations, 
and even one generation, ago. 

First of all, let us examine the present position of 
the popular English mind towards certain problems 
usually regarded as at the basis of religious ideas. We 
have already seen how in the early sixties the crassest 
obscurantism, based on the current creed, prevailed in 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 189 

the moral and intellectual attitude of the whole middle 
class, and in fact with all but a few literary and spe- 
cially intellectual circles. Things were just beginning 
to move then, but very slowly. Intellectual darkness 
and social terrorism, as described by the late Mr. Benn 
in his " History of English Rationalism during the 
Nineteenth Century," was but little shaken till quite 
the close of the sixties. The view that religion was 
necessary for the masses, and that anything tending 
to shake the belief or dull intellectual acquiescence of 
these same masses in the current theology was fraught 
with grievous danger to property and the State, and 
hence to be severely discountenanced, was commonly 
to be heard up to the beginning of the seventies. That 
generation has now, however, passed away. The average 
man in society no longer thinks it necessary even to 
pretend to any belief in the dogmas of the Christian 
Churches, but it was long before the fundamental 
articles of theological belief ceased to be regarded as 
a necessary badge of respectability.^ The question 
then arose how the problem was to be solved of not 
discarding the badge or social cachet while getting rid 
of the obligation to profess any positive belief in old 
Theistic dogma. 

It was solved on the following lines. While it was 

I Even to-day we see the remains of the old obscurantist 
sentiment flickering in certain quarters. Thus, in journals and 
publications intended for general reading, we commonly find a 
tendency to defend as much of whilom orthodox opinion as is 
possible in the face of modem knowledge and modern thought 
generally. In any doubtful point the case is mostly presented 
to the general reader with the scales weighted in favour of the 
less heterodox view, whatever that may be. This may be 
regarded, let us hope, as a last dying rumble of the old 
intolerant thunder. 



190 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

felt that to avow Atheism under that name, or in any 
unequivocal form, would have meant a serious rupture 
with the tradition of speculative respectability, a 
convenient wa}^ out was found by which a man with 
a social position to guard might retain his disbelief 
in Theism, while vehemently repudiating the charge 
of Atheism. A new word was coined to this end by 
the late Professor Huxley at one of the gatherings 
of the old Metaphysical Society, which used to meet 
in the early eighties at the late Mr. James Knowles's 
house on Clapham Common. To save his social and 
speculative respectability, the Atheist had now only 
to call himself an Agnostic and he was comparatively 
all right. A somewhat doubtful line of distinction 
was sought to be drawn between the alleged point of 
view of the despised and rejected Atheist and the 
relatively acceptable Agnostic. The Atheist, it was 
said, was a foolish, if not wicked person, who thought 
he could prove the non-existence of God. The Agnostic, 
on the other hand, was, whether one agreed with him 
or not, a decent and reasonable person, who did not 
deny the Theistic contention, but merely asserted the 
necessary absence of all proof of that contention as 
being deducible from the nature of human knowledge. 
The absence of any categorical denial on his part thus 
saved the situation as regards respectability for the 
happy Agnostic. 

Now, as to the alleged ground of distinction between 
the scorned and the tolerated opinion, if we examine 
it, we shall find, I think, that it is more vulnerable to 
criticism than its protagonists imagined. In the first 
place, it may fairly be doubted whether the Atheist 
supposed ever existed in the flesh — in short, whether 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 191 

he is not a dummy man of straw, set up by the Agnostic 
for the purpose of being knocked down again. Per- 
sonally, I cannot recall the case of any reputed Atheist 
who claimed that he could prove the non-existence of 
the Deity as a general proposition, although he may 
have contended that some particular conception or 
definition of such a Being involved inconsistencies or 
even absurdities. It is certain, however, that before 
the days of Agnosticism any one who repudiated a 
positive belief in the Theists' dogma, on the ground 
that the evidence of its truth was lacking, would have 
been counted an Atheist. But in the second place, 
even admitting the theoretical validity of the distinc- 
tion sought to be drawn by the Agnostic between his 
own position and that of the Atheist, it is not difficult 
to show that it has no practical importance, or even 
significance, whatever. Between the absence of all 
proof of an affirmative and the presence of the proof 
of a negative there may be a logical distinction, but 
it is without practical results. We see this even in 
ordinary life, in a weaker form, in the distinc- 
tion between an impossibility and a high degree of 
improbability. 

Here, also, the undoubtedly sound theoretical dis- 
tinction has no bearing whatever on conduct. I take 
an illustration I have given elsewhere. The ordinary 
suburban resident believes in the possibility of the fall 
of aerolites, and he disbelieves in basilisks (let us say) ; 
in other words, he regards the latter as an absurdity, 
or an impossibility. Nevertheless, if he is contem- 
plating an evening stroll on Clapham Common, he will 
be just as little concerned with the undoubted possi- 
bility, albeit high improbability, of having his head 



192 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

smashed by the fall of an aeroUte, as he would be with 
the absurdity or impossibility of his being scorched by 
the glance of a basilisk. For practical purposes 
there is thus no distinction between theoretical im- 
possibility and theoretical possibility, when the pro- 
bability falls below a certain standard. Hence, to 
come back to our original point, the Atheist's alleged 
belief that the non-existence of a deity can be demon- 
strated, and the Agnostic's admitted conviction that 
the nature of human knowledge precludes the possi- 
bility of any positive demonstration, or even probable 
proof, of his existence, amounts for practical purposes 
to precisely the same thing. Yet if the distinction 
commonly alleged between the Atheist and the Agnostic 
rests on what is little better than a logical quibble, 
it is not impossible perhaps, if we try, to discover 
a real distinction. But should we do so, it is in 
the region of ethical sentiment, rather than logic or 
speculative theory, that we must look for it. 

While conceding the impossibiUty of proving the 
negative of the Theist's contention, the Atheist may 
be supposed to address the Theist as follows : " Even 
admitting the truth of your speculative position as to 
the existence of some sort of personality who is the 
creator and orderer of the Universe, there is nothing 
in the nature of the ordering of this Universe that 
would entitle me to regard such a being as an object 
worthy of my worship. To any argument based on 
the imperfections or positive evils of which the ordering 
of the world is full, you Theists of all sects and per- 
suasions content yourselves with replying by vague 
assurances that, to use a vulgar metaphor, ' it will all 
come out in the washing ' — that all is meant for the 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 193 

best, and will ultimately turn out to be for the best. 
In fact, in your theology and ethics you accept the 
position of the victim of the confidence-trick man. 
Just as the former is willing to hand over his cash 
into the keeping of a person of whose bona fides he has 
no evidence, so you are prepared to pledge your faith 
and religious ideal on the unproven assumption that 
the author and providence of this Universe is ethically 
good, and that all is for the best in this best of all 
possible worlds. Now, I am not prepared to do this. 
Nay, further, I find you are acting more foolishly even 
than the victim of the confidence-trick man. The 
latter is usually a plausible person, at least, and his 
victim has nothing definite on which to base his sus- 
picions. The case with the creator and providence 
whose existence you assume is far otherwise. Here 
the horrors and evils present in the world of his 
supposed creation and ordering are very real, and 
obtrude themselves upon our notice. In the face 
of these facts my conscience will not allow me to 
regard the author or permitter (for that matter) of 
these things as worthy of my respect, not to say 
adoration. I am not to be beguiled by cheap 
references to the limitations of the human faculty, 
by tall talk about ' wise purposes,' ' beneficent 
ends,' etc., in excuse for the ways of your assumed 
deity. 

"The limitations of the human viewpoint cannot 
possibly justify us without other adequate grounds 
in concluding the very opposite of what that viewpoint 
indicates. The distinction sought to be drawn 
between action and permission, to palliate from the 
Theistic point of view the evils of the world, is futile, 

13 



194 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

If I permit a wrong to be perpetrated which I could 
prevent, I am at least passively guilty of that wrong. 
To plead it as an excuse would be, in fact, a mean 
attempt to evade the moral judgment that condemns 
me. There is a well-known legal maxim which says 
' qui facit per alium facit per se.' There are, moreover, 
certain actions and omissions, certain vile and mean 
lines of conduct, which no end can justify as means. 
The most pious bourgeois coiidenms the conduct of the 
little boy who steals money from the till in order to 
put it in the missionary-box, or of the gambler who 
cheats at cards in order to maintain his aged mother, 
yet conduct which he would reprove in the little boy 
or the cardsharper he condones in his God. That 
the end justifies the means may possibly in some cases 
be admitted as regards Man, with his limited outlook 
and powers of action. But I submit that on any 
ethical basis it can never apply as an excuse for the 
prima facie evil acts of a being possessed of the power 
and knowledge assumed in the notion of God as the 
creator and providence of this world. For m}'^ con- 
science no amount of ' wise purposes ' or ' beneficent 
ends ' will exonerate the author of the world as it is. 
They are to me as the ' good intentions ' with which 
the way to Hell is said to be paved. The transparent 
sophistry of theologians in attempting the impossible 
task of justifying their divinity fills me with nothing 
but disgust and loathing." 

Thus the Atheist. This moral attitude might possibly 
be regarded as differentiating the conscientious Atheist 
from the mere Agnostic. According to this definition, 
the Atheist is essentially ethical and religious in his 
judgment, while the Agnostic need not be so. It must 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 195 

be admitted, however, that the Atheist thus becomes 
an anti-Theist.^ 

One of the most striking phenomena of social change 
in the present generation, the counterpart of the rise 
and domination of Imperiahsm in pohtics, is the 
installation of imperialistic or patriotic sentiment in 
the place of the old religious feeling. Patriotism, as 
it is called, has undoubtedly taken the place for- 
merly occupied by Christian sentiment and aspiration 
in the mind of the average man. This was noticeable 
enough before the war, but the war, of course, has thrown 
it into the strongest possible relief. In how many 
thousands of those who have volunteered for the front 
do we not find the ideal object for which they are 
prepared to sacrifice themselves to be England or the 
British Empire. And yet how many of those who 
profess, and sincerely profess, attachment to England 
as their ideal object, if they thought a little, would 
not have to admit that there is much in England, 
politically, socially, and morally, of which they dis- 
approve ! Yet this does not prevent the ideal of 
nationality from dominating their whole emotional 
being. Of course, to a great extent the present-day 
religion of Patriotism has been worked up more or 
less artificially in the Press and on the political plat- 
form. The new rehgion of Patriotism is even preached 
by the different Christian sects as the modern expres- 

I I have often thought that, given a new Dante or Milton, a 
great epic might be written on Theistic Hnes, entitled " The 
Remorse of God," understanding by God a personal or quasi- 
personal creator and providence. The idea would be, admitting 
the essential moral goodness of the latter, his gradual awakening 
to a sense of the moral perversion and wickedness involved in 
the doing or permitting of evil for the problematical achievement 
of " wise purposes " and " beneficent ends." 



196 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

sion of their creed. It is inculcated through the Boy 
Scouts' movement and in the present-day education 
of our youth. For the religion of Patriotism, the 
national or imperial State is the ultima ratio. It does 
not recognize any organism or collectivity as object of 
conduct higher than the State. Humanity is for it 
a mere phrase. The solidarity, moreover, of those 
scattered through many existing States, holding like 
views and like aspirations, never suggests itself to it 
as perhaps an intrinsically higher object of conduct 
than any existing State, on the analogy of the mediaeval 
conception of Christendom. The only alternative to 
this erection of imperialistic jingo sentiment, under 
the name of Patriotism, into a religion, is Socialism. 
The aspiration towards a classless society and inter- 
national brotherhood is for Socialism a supreme ideal 
of life and conduct. 

The whole outlook of to-day shows the complete 
loss of hold of the older faith on modern society. The 
change of mental attitude between now and fifty years 
ago is enormous. It would perhaps not be going too 
far to say that the difference between the mental out- 
look of the average man of 1866 and of 1916 is quite 
as great as, if not greater than, that between the man 
of 1866 and the corresponding man of 1766. Such has 
been the acceleration of the tempo of social and 
intellectual changes within the last two generations. 

Amid the various movements indicating modified 
views of the relations of life, what is known as the 
woman's movement has not failed to attract much 
attention. I do not propose here to discuss this ques- 
tion at any length. I have already done so elsewhere.^ 
' E.g. in the "Fraud of Feminism" (Grant Richards), 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 197 

But there are certain of its aspects with which one is 
continually confronted at the present day. The freeing 
of women from the conventional bonds of the society 
of fifty years ago has had a wide influence : among 
other things, it has had the result of producing a new 
set of sex-illusions in men. The scorning and dis- 
paragement of the old idea of the domestic function 
as being pre-eminently the raison d'etre of woman, which 
has become the commonplace of many advanced circles, 
has led, on the one hand, to the illusion among men 
that they must look in their womankind not merely 
for sexual fidelity, and kindliness in word and conduct, 
but for intellectual companionship, and to the reading 
into their relations with their wives and other female 
associates an intellectual companionship which is not 
there. On the other hand, it has led in women to the 
cultivation of self-assertion and priggery, in order to 
make up in the eyes of men for their real intellectual 
deficiencies. The assumption of intellectual indepen- 
dence gives to the woman of the present day a special 
impress. Yet it is noteworthy that after the complete 
social and intellectual emancipation of the female 
sex, which has been going on now for wellnigh two 
generations (reckoning from its first beginnings), that 
the number of really eminent women of the first class 
has not increased. The George Sands, George Eliots, 
the Rosa Bonheurs, the Charlotte Brontes, all belong 
to the period when women were not emancipated as 
they are now. What has the present day to show on 
the score of female geniuses ? That there are a suffi- 
ciency of intelligent and able women going about is 
of course not to be denied, but I can only recall one 
who could be quoted as showing an intellectual calibre 



198 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

which could take its place in that of the front rank 
of men in the same department. In the authoress of 
" Themis " we undoubtedly have, even more than in 
the women of earlier generations mentioned above, an 
intellectual power and flexibility of intellect which 
may truly be termed masculine. 

Otto Weininger, in his book " Sex and Character," 
remarks upon the fact that in both the sexes you usually 
find a more or less of ingredient of the opposite sex. 
This may be slight and almost inappreciable, or it 
may be an important factor. It may manifest itself 
also in various ways, physically, morally, and intel- 
lectually, but the appearance at rare intervals of a 
woman with an exceptional muscular development, an 
exceptional strength of purpose (a Lady Macbeth, a 
Jeanne d'Arc, etc.) or of intellectual perception, 
approaching or equalling that of the first rank of men 
in the same department, may fairly be regarded as 
examples of lusus naturcB, rather than as indicating 
any general potentialities on the part of the female 
sex. Had there been anything approaching real 
equality in mental disposition between the sexes, this 
equality should, I contend, have shown itself in the 
course of the last half century in an unmistakable 
manner, and this it certainly has not done. 

Those who are forever contending for the average 
intellectual equality of women with men, it is difficult 
to believe do so in complete bona fides. They studiedly 
ignore that prominent characteristic of the human 
female, the inability to follow out a logical argument, 
coupled with the unwillingness to admit the plainest 
fact or proof which tells against a cherished prejudice 
or emotion. How often do we find a woman, con- 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 1©9 

fronted by such fact or proof, stop her ears, or rush 
out of the room with some such phrase as " Oh, leave 
off, I can't bear it ! " I would ask the apostles of 
female equality if they have ever heard of a man acting 
in this way. Or, again, how many women they have 
known who do not change their opinions with their 
moods, or with changes in their relations with persons. 
The sort of conduct referred to belongs to the hysterical 
side of woman, of which so many aspects present them- 
selves to common observation, but which Feminist 
advocates are often found dishonest enough to ignore 
or even to deny. 

With all the talk of equality between the sexes, we find 
the notion of chivalry, based upon the opposite theory 
of woman's physical and mental weakness, " moult 
no feather." Women, as before remarked, are to have 
all the rights and responsibilities of men so long as these 
are honourable and agreeable, but there is no serious 
suggestion amongst Feminists that they should give up 
any of the privileges " chivalry " (so called) accords 
them by virtue of their sex. Evidence galore of this 
is to be found, not only in the comparatively unim- 
portant manners and customs of everyday life, but in 
our courts of law, criminal and civil. We never hear 
a hint from the side of the woman's movement that 
men and women convicted respectively of the same, 
or equally heinous, offences should have the same 
measure of punishment meted out to them. There 
is no notion among the Feminist fraternity that what is 
sauce for the gander should also be sauce for the goose. 
On the contrary, every effort is made by the pretended 
advocates of equality to emphasize and strengthen 
the so-called chivalric sentiment, based on an entirely 



200 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

different vievf of the respective powers and capacities 
of the sexes, together with the consequences as regards 
female privilege deducible from that sentiment.' Such, 
in a few words, describes the body of opinion known as 
the woman's movement up to the early Summer of 1914. 
The attitude of pubhc opinion as regards the marriage 
question, though partly coloured by the view taken 
of the woman question generally, is by no means alto- 
gether so. On the contrary, it runs frequently on 
independent lines. The question of the right of the 
State to determine the private relations of the indi- 
vidual in the matter of sex is one which has acquired 
increasing prominence during the present generation. 
Although long before the matter of private reflexion 
and discussion among the thoughtful, it was lifted 
into the arena of pubhc debate largely through the 
publication by the late Mr. Grant Allen of his didactic 
novel, " The Woman Who Did." Viewed on rational- 
istic principles, and apart from theological preposses- 
sions or ethical prejudices deriving or surviving from 
earlier social conditions, it has become to many persons 
increasingly doubtful whether the sex relation in itself 
is a subject belonging to morality at all, any more 
than the exercise of any other physiological function. 
This, of course, at first sight wears the aspect of an 
astounding paradox. But it may be observed that I 
italicize the words in itself. For it is quite clear that 
in the general run of human conduct it often involves, 

* A striking illustration of the unfair twist to emotion given by 
tlie chivalric sentiment was afforded during the present war by 
the Cavell case. Amid all the admiration showered upon Edith 
Cavell, and indignation at her execution, not one word was heard 
of the case of the Belgian architect, PhiUppe Bancq, who was 
shot for precisely the same offence, at the same time and place, 
as Edith Cavell herself ! 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 201 

owing to the conditions surrounding it, serious moral 
considerations. But the distinction between this sex 
question considered per se and per aliud has never 
as yet been kept sufficiently in view. Granting the 
distinction named, the question resolves itself into 
how far society is justified by moral pressure, or still 
more, through its organ the State, by compulsory legal 
enactment, in interfering with what is au fond a purely 
private and personal question for the individual man 
or woman. The chief point, of course, in which the 
sex-relation of the individual affects society in general, 
in fact, we may say the only point in which it directly 
affects it, is the question of offspring. How far can 
the welfare of offspring be effectively safeguarded in 
society as at present constituted ? Is the coercion 
of the individual, either by moral pressure or by legal 
compulsion, such as the existing Marriage Laws, neces- 
sary, or is it the most effective way of achieving the 
end in view ? An increasing body of opinion among 
the thinking classes of the community is tending to 
pronounce against the necessity and even against the 
practical expediency of the existing coercive Marriage 
Laws, and in favour of the constituting of the marriage 
relation as an entirely free union, or at best as one in 
which the law would only concern itself, as in other 
cases of contract, with the enforcement of the condi- 
tions, if any, originally agreed upon between the 
parties themselves. Marriage would become thenceforth 
another case of the oft-quoted principle enunciated 
by the late Sir Henry Maine, that legal progress is 
from status to contract. It is certainly difficult to see 
that the retention of the marriage relation as a status 
has been productive of the happiness or well-being of 



202 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the community. That other and more efficient means 
of safeguarding the welfare of children than such as 
aim at the legal handcuffing together of the parents 
and the hampering of their personal freedom — for this 
is the result of the Marriage Laws of to-day — will 
hardly admit of a doubt by any open-minded person 
who has given the subject his careful consideration. 
The progress made within the last few years in intelli- 
gent public opinion as regards this question is indeed 
remarkable. The question of marriage has at least 
reached the stage in which opinions differing from the 
traditional and conventional ones are admitted as 
being reasonably and honestly held, and acted upon, 
by many people. It is noteworthy that some of the 
Suffragette leaders profess to be champions of the 
conventional opinions in the matter in question. Is 
this with a view to winning over reactionary opinion, or 
is it for the purpose of maintaining the unfair incidence 
of the present coercive Marriage Laws upon the husband, 
whereby the wife is enabled to browbeat him at her 
pleasure ? In any case, the question of free or legal 
marriage union can at most be one of civil expediency 
rather than of morals. The subjecting oneself or not 
to a legal form, whichever way it be decided, cannot 
possibly be a question of morality or immorality. 

Leaving social and political matters and reverting 
to those of religious or speculative interest, a word 
should be said on the comparative success in the early 
nineties of that singular personality known as Madame 
Blavatsky. Whether impostor, as most people regarded 
her, or not, she . certainly had a somewhat sensational 
success in the declining years of the last century. The 
speculative tenets she promulgated, under the name 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 208 

Theosophy, or, as I believe it was originally termed. 
Esoteric Buddhism, were, as Professor Rhys Davies 
assured me, when they received their first boom, not 
Buddhist at all, but represented the common Yogi 
doctrines of India. As a matter of fact, we may trace 
them in Europe at least as long ago as the second 
century with its Gnostic systems. Especially may be 
noticed in this connexion the writing known as the 
" Pistis Sophia." But mystic doctrines of a similar 
character are traceable in various parts of Southern 
and Western Asia long before the Christian Era, and, 
as we all know, spread throughout the Roman Empire 
with considerable success during the first and second 
centuries. They seem to have a tendency to reappear 
whenever a particular civilization becomes worn out 
and its traditional shibboleths and the notions pre- 
viously binding it together are rapidly going into 
the melting-pot. It is true that, in our present tran- 
sitional period, the ideal of social evolution has for 
the first time appeared above the horizon of human 
thought and aspiration in a definite form, but it is 
not yet strong enough to supersede the old interest, 
among the thoughtful, in the fortunes of the individual 
personality or soul. To overcome, even in thought, 
this self-centredness of the individual self-consciousness 
and its interests, in favour of that which from its own 
standpoint is external to, and apparently detached 
from, itself, is indeed a hard thing for most men. Such 
an attitude may indeed, as every great crisis shows, 
obtain sporadically on a wave of exceptional enthu- 
siasm, and be the stimulus to the most heroic self- 
sacrifice, but it does not endure as a permanent state 
of mind. Jaures puts the thing trenchantly (" L'Armee 



204 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Nouvelle," p. 404). Speaking with reference to the 
hopelessness of countless individual lives and destinies 
under Capitalism : " Quand on songe que dans notre 
univers encore barbare, la vie et la conscience sont 
discontinues ; que chaque centre de sensibilite est 
impenetrable aux autres ; que pour I'individu la douleur 
individuelle est un absolu ; que la continuite et I'in- 
fiiiite des choses sont encore tout exterieures et super- 
licielles ; que pour tout etre vivant la loi se resume 
tout entiere en son propre destin ; que la trame illimitee 
du temps est dechiree en autant de lambeaux qu'il 
y a d'etres ephemeres, et que, par un surcroit de 
durete et de scandale, beaucoup ont souffert et meurent 
sans avoir meme entrevu a quoi leur douleur et leur 
mort peuvent servir ; quand on pense en effet a tout 
cela, il n'y a pas de progres social qui puisse pleine- 
ment consoler de toutes les souffrances qui en furent 
la rancon." 

It is undoubtedly the feeling to which Jaures refers 
in this passage, of the absoluteness and intranslata- 
bility, so to say, of the individual personality and its 
interests, which is the stumbling-block with many 
in the way of an ideal, for which any given personality 
is rather accidental than essential. And the strength 
of this feeling still remaining it is on which theories 
of the supernatural, including man}^ a new quackery, 
base their success in the modern world. This was 
undoubtedly the soil in which Madame Blavatsky's 
propaganda struck root. The rejection of Christian 
dogma does not necessarily mean any lack of inter- 
est on the part of the individual in the destiny and 
fortunes of his own soul. The dogmatic assurances of 
Christian Theology in this connexion having lost their 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 205 

hold, refuge is sought in other means of consolement. 
Although I would not for a moment be understood 
as placing the two movements on the same level, the 
above remarks apply, as already observed, at least to 
some extent, to the Psychical Research Society. The 
latter, there is no doubt, represents a movement based 
on scientific lines and run by men of scientific standing. 
But the motive inspiring many of those who take an 
interest in it may unquestionably be found in the 
clinging of many minds to the individual soul and its 
fortunes. It would be futile to deny the existence of 
this feeling in some of the best of us, but it is also 
absurd to pretend that, natural though it may be, there 
is anything specially high and noble in it, and that, 
on the contrary, those who find their strongest concern 
and supremest aspiration in the realization of a higher 
humanity do not represent a loftier ideal than the 
seekers after the destiny of their own souls. 

We may conclude this chapter by noticing, in con- 
trast to modern notions, one or two specimens of the 
bourgeois wisdom of one's youth which have long since 
lost their savour. They afford an insight into the 
mentality of the British middle-class man of the early- 
and mid- Victorian epoch. These pieces of wisdom 
were coined for the purpose of edification. Thus, the 
youth of that period were seriously told, as an argument 
against the use of strong language, that it was un- 
dignified, since it implied that the man who swore did 
not consider his own bare word as carrying enough 
weight of itself to guarantee the truth of what he said. 
The idea of any one taking this somewhat wiiedrawn 
piece of casuistry seriously seems funny at the present 
day. It would be interesting to know whether many 



206 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

ingenuous youths of, say, the fifties and sixties of the 
last century were really deterred from the expression 
of their feelings " in well set terms " by the terrible 
implication that their doing so meant that they under- 
valued their own character for veracity. The habitual 
use of strong language on any and every occasion, we 
may agree, is to be deprecated, as both indicating and 
tending to encourage an unbalanced emotional temper. 
But there is no doubt that there are occasions on which 
the employment of purpled speech is not only a useful 
and salutary vent to the feelings, but also impresses 
the hearer. In any case, the reason for abstaining 
from it excogitated by the pious Victorian brain is 
characteristic and amusing, if not convincing. 

Another select specimen of edificatory Victorian 
wisdom on somewhat similar lines to the last may be 
found in the appraisement of the moral bearings of 
suicide, which consisted in the assertion that the man 
who took his own life exhibited cowardice in so doing, 
since his act was a proof that he lacked the courage 
to face the responsibilities of existence. Now, we may 
fairly ask ourselves whether the good Victorian souls, 
who felt it their duty to put forward this thesis for 
the sake of edification, did not do so with their tongues 
in their cheeks. The unsophisticated human being 
knows that the man who deliberately faces death in 
any form, and whether self-inflicted or not, is the very 
opposite of a coward. He may be everything else that 
you like, but he is most assuredly not a coward. The 
willingness to face death, no matter for what cause, 
whether it be good or bad, is of itself an all-convincing 
guarantee at least of one virtue — courage. No amount 
of feeble paradoxical casuistry will suffice to stamp 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 207 

the man who is prepared to do this, whatever be his 
motives, as other than a brave man. The universally 
accepted definitions of courage and cowaidice essentially 
involve this, and the bona fides of the goody-goody 
Victorian moralist who would have called it in question 
by his sophistications may fairly be doubted. We 
know, of course, that the habit of tampering with truth 
for the sake of edification is not a new one, but its ethical 
justification is, to put it mildly, at least highly debatable. 
One of the gems of the bourgeois wisdom of the 
Victorian era, which was supposed by its votaries to 
be crushing as against all theories of economic equality, 
was the assumption that poverty was the result of 
laziness, and wealth of industry on the part of its 
possessors. According to the assumption in question, 
the existence side by side in the same society of a 
working class and a capitalist class was due to the 
fact that one set of human beings, or its progenitors, 
was idle and thriftless, and another set industrious 
and thrifty. The working classes, the wage-earners, 
those who live by the toil of their hands, represented 
the first class, those who possessed wealth and lived 
on their incomes — in a word, the aristocracy and the 
middle classes — stood for the second. The exact way 
in which this great economic difference came about 
was never explained ; but the worthy bourgeois none 
the less persuaded himself, or professed to have per- 
suaded himself, into a belief that it was even so — that 
once upon a time there existed a lot of idle, worthless 
rascals side by side with another set of frugal and 
industrious saints, and that these two sets of persons 
were the progenitors and the protagonists of the poor 
and the rich classes of to-day respectively, to whose 



208 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

descendants the vices of the one class and the virtues 
of the other had been for the most part transmitted. 
The above is no exaggeration of the social and economic 
beliefs of otherwise fairly well-educated people in this 
country a generation or two ago. That, speaking 
generally, poverty has no more to do with idleness and 
thriftlessness, or wealth with industry and frugality, 
than either have with the spots on the sun, is a pro- 
position the average bourgeois mind of the England of 
the fifties and the sixties of the last century would have 
confessed itself altogether unable to grasp. The socio- 
logical views of our grandparents on this question 
afford another illustration of the often-noted fact 
that, if the sheerest nonsense be only enough repeated 
and dinned into the ears of people by themselves and 
others, it will be accepted without further investigation 
as though it were a proved scientific fact. Of course, 
in this case the acceptance of the doctrine in question 
was aided by the class interest, which led to the wish 
to believe what was pleasant and consoling to itself. 

The above illustrations are, I think, fair specimens 
of the lines on which the popular middle-class wisdom 
of a couple of generations ago ran. The idea was 
always edification — edification, that is, from the current 
bourgeois point of view — first, truth and correct reason- 
ing very much afterwards. 

We may remark, by the way, that we find sub- 
stantially the same thing to-day in what is known 
as " judge-made law," especially criminal law. All 
such judicial decisions will be found on examination 
to have for their end, not the logical interpretation 
of a law or statute, but " edification " from the 
judge's point of view, to wit, the enlarging of th? 



THE MENTAL OUTLOOK 209 

scope of the law as much as feasible, i.e. the bring 
ing as many acts as possible under its ban. Thus, 
the decision by which, in the case of two persons agree- 
ing to commit suicide together, and only one of them 
dying, the survivor is chargeable with the murder of 
his partner ; or that other decision, according to which 
any one unintentionally causing the death of another 
person, through the perpetration of an illegal act, is 
likewise guilty of the crime of wilful murder, are both 
plainly at variance with justice, as they are with any 
reasonable or common-sense definition of the crime of 
wilful murder. These decisions, especially the last 
named, even amount to an impudent violation of the 
obvious intention of the common law, the element of 
wilfulness being plainly absent. It is the same with 
most other cases of decision-law. Statutes are wrenched 
out of their sockets, with the aid of the most trans- 
parent casuistry, to make them cover cases they were 
never meant to cover, to satisfy the lust of the judiciary 
for the manufacture of new crimes or the enhancing 
of the severity of punishment in the case of old ones, 
thereby increasing their own power over their victims. 
The flagrant and shameless violation of principle, of 
logic, and of right judgment in the interpretation of 
law by the judiciary in the interests of this theory, 
that it is desirable to catch as many victims as possible 
in the net of the law, and thereby augment the power 
of its administrators, amounts to a scandal. 

What changes the great World War will make in the 
general character of the British mind in its activities 
and receptivities it is of course impossible to say as 
yet, but, as already pointed out in the beginning of the 
present chapter, it seems hardly likely that views and 

14 



210 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

ways of looking at things will undergo an immediate 
and complete transformation, although they can hardly 
fail to be modified by the crisis through which the 
world has passed since the Summer of 1914. Mean- 
while, I offer these admittedly detached remarks on 
certain aspects of the nineteenth and early twentieth- 
century thought to be followed up at will by those 
interested. 



CHAPTER X 

VARIORUM REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

It may not be amiss to say a few words on some of 
the more noteworthy men I have known otherwise 
than in connexion with the SociaHst movement. Let 
us begin with Philosophy. Foremost amongst the 
EngHshmen who took an active part in what was 
known as the " Yomig " or Neo-HegeHan movement 
in this country was Richard Burdon Haldane (now 
Lord Haldane). I first met Haldane in 1882, when 
this movement in Philosophy was at its height, having 
driven back the old English empirical or associational 
school (to employ a military metaphor) to its second 
and third line of defences. In a word, the British 
empirical school, whose doctrines had long been thought 
the final word in Philosophy, was already regarded by 
the up-to-date men as old-fashioned and commonplace. 
I saw Haldane for the first time at a meeting of the old 
Aristotelian Society, at which he spoke in favour of the 
Neo-Hegelian position. Our acquaintance ripened, and 
he used sometimes to come down to Croydon, where I 
was then Uving, on a Sunday, and many a walk I have 
had with him on the Surrey hills. Among the smaller 
incidents of these walks I remember, while we were 
crossing a field, Haldane's impressing upon me the legal 



212 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

point that should any question of trespass arise in such 
a case, the correct thing was to tender a small coin for 
technical damage to the owner or his agent, with the 
words " I claim no right," which should stop all further 
proceedings. 

I can well recall a Sunday in 1885 when he arrived 
and informed me that he was about to devote him- 
self to a political career, and had entered as Liberal 
candidate for Haddingtonshire. He proceeded to 
argue that the principles of Gladstonian Liberalism 
represented the political outcome or reflex of the 
Hegelian thought-movement of the " Idee." A dis- 
cussion ensued, in which I traversed his main position 
alike in Philosophy and in politics. Later on the 
champion of Woman Suffrage Bills, Haldane at this 
time and for some years after was opposed to the move- 
ment, remarking to me on one occasion that the main 
object many of these women had in desiring the 
suffrage was to force rascally and unjust laws against 
men onto the Statute-book. It is to be regretted, from 
the point of view of consistency, that Haldane sub- 
sequently undertook the ministerial piloting through 
the House of Lords of that most infamous piece of 
anti-male legislation, the so-called " White Slavery 
Act" of 1912. 

Throughout his career Haldane has never aban- 
doned his devotion to Hegel, and always has a 
portrait of the great German thinker near him in the 
room where he is working. This, together with his 
well-known appreciation of German thought and German 
literature generally, has undoubtedly been the cause 
of some of the attacks with which he has been assailed, 
with insinuations as to his being a " pro-German," 



VARIORUM 218 

during the present war. Whatever view we may- 
take of Haldane's career as a pohtician, or of his theo- 
retical opinions, poHtical or otherwise, there is no doubt 
that he has been subjected to most unfair criticism, 
which is really based on the fact of his interest in the 
intellectual side of German life. As regards another 
of the accusations against him, we must never forget 
that a man who has not the point of view of Socialist 
criticism as regards all existing Capitalist govern- 
ments, and hence who does not distrust them ab initio, 
is very likely, with the best intentions, to be befooled 
in his diplomatic intercourse. Besides, even apart 
from this, a thinker is not necessarily the best judge 
of character or a good reader of the intentions of men, 
and 1 for one can see nothing remarkable in the fact 
that Haldane, in the Spring of 19 12, acting in perfect 
good faith, allowed himself to be, partly at least, be- 
guiled by the Kaiser and the clever and unscrupulous 
politicians of the Wilhelmstrasse. After all, Haldane's 
real interests have always lain in Philosophy. The 
real Haldane is Haldane the metaphysician. Haldane 
the politician is merely the ordinary, intriguing mani- 
pulator of one of the traditional parties in the State. 

Of the rest of my philosophical friends and acquaint- 
ances, with the exception of Eduard von Hartmann, 
already referred to on a previous page, I can recall 
no name that would interest the general reader save 
that of Henri Bergson. I met Bergson for the first 
time at a dinner given in his honour by Mr. Wildon 
Carr at the Savile Club, when he was in England 
some few years ago. This dinner was an interesting 
one ^ from many points of view. We all made after- 
dinner speeches, I remember — Shaw, Zangwill, Graham 



214 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Wallas, myself, and others, besides the guest of the 
evening, all contributing their quota. As may be 
expected, the " elan vital " and the " duree " figured 
largely in many of these discourses. Bergson, as he 
told me afterwards, was much gratified with the even- 
ing's entertainment, and with the sociableness and 
informality that characterized the proceedings. I sub- 
sequently saw Bergson on different occasions in Paris, 
and had some interesting conversations with him. On 
my questioning Bergson as to why he had not dealt 
with certain of what are usually regarded as the funda- 
mental problems of Metaphysics, he replied that as 
yet he had not done so, as he had had his special work 
to do, which was to emphasize Reality as an inter- 
penetrative movement of which Time was the essential 
element, in opposition to the older Metaphysics, for 
which the arrested moment of consciousness, repro- 
duced in reflexion, on the analogy of spacial relation, 
was regarded as the prius of the world of living reality. 
He said further that he doubted whether the time was 
ripe as yet for a complete philosophic synthesis. The 
evolution of philosophic thought, he was of opinion, 
should follow a course similar to the evolution of 
physical science. Each worker in the field of Philo- 
sophy should, like the scientific investigator, work at 
his own special problem as far as possible, without 
attempting to spread himself over the whole field and 
reduce all problems equally under his purview. The 
time would then eventually come, each separate prob- 
lem being thoroughly worked out, for the elaboration 
of a complete and systematic philosophic synthesis. 

Bergson has told me that he was a contemporary of 
Jaurds as an undergraduate at the University of Paris, 



VARIORUM 215 

and, if I remember rightly, also of Sorel, the well-known 
writer on Syndicalism and Anarchism. Speaking of 
the feminist question, he expressed himself as opposed 
to female suffrage at the present time, but as regards 
the question of comparative intellectual power as 
between the sexes, he stated that, in looking over the 
exercises of his pupils, he was often unable to pro- 
nounce upon the sex of the writer until he saw the 
signature at the end. Respecting this point, however, 
I may recall to mind the remark made to me by Pro- 
fessor Sinzheimer, of Munich, as the result of his obser- 
vation, to the effect that while in the first year or two of 
their university career he found that female students, 
as a rule, showed little or no inferiority in their work 
to men, yet that after this they rapidly " tailed off," 
and that at the conclusion of their course of studies, 
the difference between the male and female students 
who were contemporaries, i.e. who had entered the 
university at the same time, was often very con- 
siderable indeed. To return to Bergson. He is one 
of the marvels of the age, not so much on account 
of his undoubted genius and literary gift of presenting 
the special philosophic problem or problems with 
which he concerns himself, as for his power of attracting 
the extra-philosophic popular mind. Bergson's repu- 
tation outside the philosophic world, properly so-called, 
is not only greater than that of any other contemporary 
thinker, but there are probably few metaphysicians in 
the past who have enjoyed a popular fame while 
living anything like equal to that of the amiable and 
brilliant professor at the College de France. 

Of my friend Boulting, whose excellent work on 
Giordano Bruno has lately been published, I have already 



216 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

spoken on an earlier page. Hitherto the only writings 
of his before the public have related to Italian history. 

The International Congresses of Philosophy, to the 
institution of which Mr. Wildon Carr, who retired from 
the City to give his whole time to the interests of 
Philosophy, has devoted himself, were abruptly inter- 
rupted by the outbreak of the European War, just 
when arrangements had been made for holding the 
fifth Congress in London in 1915. Of the usefulness of 
such gatherings in the furtherance of investigation 
and discussion of the leading problems in the various 
departments of Philosophy there can be no question. 

While on the subject of Philosophy, I cannot refrain 
from protesting against a practice dear to many academic 
exponents of the subject. It is a practice which may, 
I suppose, in the modern world be regarded as dating 
from Spinoza. I refer to the habit of giving to the 
Absolute the appellation God. This seems to me 
to be utterly unjustifiable from every point of view. 
The temptation to court popularity by using a popular 
theological term, nevertheless, seems to be irresistible 
to some thinkers. But it is a fraud and a deception, 
notwithstanding. The Absolute of which the philo- 
sopher speaks is not only not identical with God as 
ordinarily understood, but has hardly any analogy 
therewith. Not only the man in the street, but all 
persons, educated or uneducated, outside the special 
ranks of philosophical students, know roughly what 
they mean by God, and this meaning is not that of 
the Absolute of the metaphysician. The word God, 
outside Spinoza and later thinkers who have followed 
him, has always had a theological connotation. It 
has always stood for a personal or quasi-personal Being, 



VARIORUM 217 

over against the world, who has created and who orders 
the world, as a despot orders his government, or, if 
you prefer it, as a loving father of patriarchal days 
ordered his household. Now, the Absolute of Philo- 
sophy has nothing whatever to do with this. By the 
Absolute is meant simply the ultimate principle which 
the analysis of conscious experience discloses as its 
own ultimate ground. It lies altogether outside the 
Theistic assumption. And it is, I submit, a gross 
deception to attempt by juggling with a word to befool 
the man who is seeking what Professor Gilbert Murray 
terms the " friend behind phenomena," with some- 
thing totally different. I know that many intrinsically 
honest thinkers have been guilty of this subterfuge 
(as it seems to me). Even such a straightforward man 
as the late Jean Jaures, in his otherwise excellent and 
acute treatise, " De la realite du monde sensible," has 
not been above resorting to it, a circumstance, by the 
way, which necessitated an explanation on his part 
when challenged as to his real meaning on one occasion 
in the French Chamber. Verily, Spinoza's Deus sive 
natura has much to answer for ! The example of the 
great Jewish philosopher has been only too largely 
followed by a host of epigoni up to the present day. To 
my thinking, as above said, to cheat the unfortunate 
creature hankering after the " friend behind pheno- 
mena " with the Absolute of Metaphysics is grossly 
unfair. What he wants is a personality over against 
himself, and not a metaphysical postulate embracing 
himself, no matter how " spiritual " the terms in which 
it may be interpreted. 

For the rest, the increasing interest in the higher 
issues of speculative thought, even though its growth 



218 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

may be slow, is nevertheless an undoubted fact and 
an encouraging one. The number of people, outside 
purely academic circles, who take an interest in these 
problems is unquestionably greater than ever before. 
This is, of course, partly one side merely of the general 
spread of intellectual activity and intellectual interests 
among ever widening sections of the population. There 
is perhaps, as a consequence of the above, too much 
tendency to regard Philosophy as no more than a 
branch of general literature. But while duly discount- 
ing this fact, we are justified, I think, nevertheless, 
in concluding that there is far greater genuine interest 
and intellectual alertness, with the average intelligent 
man of to-day, as regards these subjects, than was the 
case with a similar man of (say) a couple of generations 
ago. At that time, the theological interest was upper- 
most with the serious-minded. To-day, the meta- 
physical interest has at least partially entered into 
its inheritance, the major part of human interest being 
necessarily and justly occupied by the problems of 
the physical sciences, and still more of the human 
sciences. 

The popularity of Bergson, though partly literary 
and partly mere fashion, nevertheless helps to confirm 
the above remarks. The British interest in Kant or 
Hegel, or, so far as France is concerned, in Victor Cousin, 
was in its day not a tithe of that shown to-day in the 
case of Bergson. One thing is also of prime importance, 
and that is the general consensus of conviction that 
no subject of human knowledge can be treated ade- 
quately in an isolated manner, but that, in the last 
resort, all derive from the subject-matter of the problems 
with which Philosophy deals. The old theory that 



VARIORUM 219 

Metaphysics is vanity has given way before a sense of 
the fact that the problems raised by metaphysics cannot 
be finally ignored or explained away, but that the 
human mind is doomed to seek some solution of them ; 
if not a final solution, at least one which shall satisfy 
it for the present, while awaiting the more adequate 
one that time must inevitably bring with it. As to 
whether a final, in the sense of a fully adequate, solution 
will ever be reached, is a question the discussion of 
which would lie outside a book of reminiscences and 
more or less cursory reflexions. 

Reverting from this digression into the regions ot 
the " higher thought " to the reminiscence side of my 
present labours, the late poet, William Sharp, I may 
take as a specimen of the purely literary man. Sharp 
had no real interests outside pure literature. He had 
no special convictions on political or social matters, 
or on speculative questions, save insofar as they pre- 
sented themselves in the guise of literary form and 
style. During the years 1879-80 I saw a good deal of 
Sharp and had many walks with him. I invariably 
found that all other interests with him were super- 
ficial, and contributory to the " styhstic " interest 
which was always the dominant one. His ambitions 
were purely literary, and one felt in his case what 
Morris used to say of Swinburne, that he ought to 
have been born between two calf covers. My general 
impression of Sharp was that while his literary faculty 
was obvious, he was an inconstant, uncertain, and 
whimsical person, liable to moods and affectations of 
moods, that often made themselves apparent alike 
socially and in his literary efforts. H I am not mis- 
taken, Shaw, on more than one occasion, in reviewing 



220 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

him, trounced him somewhat severely for the arti- 
ficiaUty of his literary emotions. He and I drifted 
asunder in the early eighties, and I rarely met him 
subsequently. In fact, I do not think I saw him at 
all after he had begun to publish under the name of 
" Fiona Macleod." It seems undoubted that the whole 
" Fiona Macleod " business was a pure mystification 
of Sharp himself, but yet there appear to have been 
people who profess to have seen the original " Fiona 
Macleod " in the flesh, at her home in the Highlands. 
A friend of the present writer relates that in the year 
1900, in a Paris salon — of which the hostess, it may be 
mentioned, was the sister of an eminent French writer — 
he heard a Scotchman " of credit and renown" relate 
a circumstantial story of a visit he paid to " Fiona 
Macleod," and of her personal appearance as being 
that of a young and attractive woman — little more 
than a girl, in fact. Pressed to give details, the gentle- 
man in question excused himself on the ground that to 
do so would be a breach of confidence, inasmuch as 
the lady wished to remain in strict seclusion until she 
deemed that the time had come to carry out a long- 
cherished plan of initiating a revival in Scottish life 
and literature. The statements of the guest referred 
to appeared to be accepted without question by the 
rest of the company, which included several Scotch- 
men. I give the fact of the party and of the reputable 
Scot's story for what it is worth. It should be observed 
that certain crankisms of the time, notably the pose 
of Jacobitism then fashionable, were represented 
amongst the circle assembled on the occasion, the 
soi-disant acquaintance of " Fiona Macleod " boasting 
himself an ardent Jacobite The whole history of Sharp 



VARIORUM 231 

and his double shows the facility of successfully faking 
a quasi-myth, even in the present day. 

Quite a different man from Sharp was another well- 
known author I used to meet sometimes in the early 
eighties, to wit, Havelock ElUs. An able essayist, 
the interests of Havelock Ellis lay in the human sciences 
rather than in literature. His interesting and valuable 
researches into the psychology of sex were subsequently 
enshrined in a work of five volumes, which, in spite of 
its strictly scientific character, was, to the shame of 
those concerned, prohibited in this country, and had 
to seek a pubhsher in America. Besides this monu- 
mental work on the subject, Havelock ElUs, as is well 
known, is the author of various books and articles 
deahng with the interpretation and analysis of the 
sexual impulse in Man, in the protean forms in which 
it manifests itself. Ellis is in appearance and manner 
the type of the quiet and laborious student. He was, 
I believe, at one time engaged to be married to Olive 
Schreiner, now Mrs. Cronwright Schreiner, of South 
African fame, but the engagement was broken off. 

As regards Ellis's special subject of investigation, 
nothing can surely well be more absurd or anachron- 
istic in the modern world than the notion held by 
many persons, who ought to know better, that a ring- 
fence should be drawn round this subject, not only 
as regards the freedom of its treatment in imaginative 
literature, but as to the publication of the results of 
purely scientific investigation. To ignore or exclude 
an important branch of practical human psychology 
from the research of the scientist, merely on the ground 
that the bare recital of the facts connected therewith 
may possibly offend the morbid delicacy of certain 



222 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

unwholesome people, is to head back progress just as 
much as it would be to discourage or prohibit (in the 
manner of the Church and Galileo) the publication 
of the results of scientific research in any other depart- 
ment of knowledge. Yet this is precisely the attitude 
that certain members of the English judiciary took 
up as regards the researches of Havelock Ellis — there- 
by affording one more instance of the essentially 
obscurantist and reactionary role played by the High 
Court Bench in the national life. 

In respect to the reactionary character of the wearers 
of ermine, and of the sort of quasi-divinity that doth 
hedge a judge in the estimation of that stolid and 
patient ox the British public, the national intelligence 
does not seem to have changed so very much within 
the last two or three generations. But that the national 
character as well as the national physiognomy within 
the last fifty years of the nineteenth century has altered 
considerably, I have the evidence of an aged American 
gentleman who came over to England in 1901, and 
shortly after his arrival paid me a visit. This gentle- 
man, whose name was Hinton, had been one of the 
friends and companions of John Brown in the Harper's 
Ferry incident of 1857. He wrote a history of the 
whole affair in an interesting book with which he pre- 
sented me. What, however, especially struck me in 
his conversation was not so much his American reminis- 
cences, as the astonishment he repeatedly expressed at 
the total change he found as between the English 
people of 1901 and the English people of 1848, fifty- 
three years before, which was the date of his last visit 
to this country. He had lived, it should be said, in 
the meantime, in a part of the United States where 



VARIORUM 228 

he had had little opportunity of meeting Britishers, 
either emigrants or casual visitors. According to his 
statement, the change was not confined merely to 
obvious things, such as dress, outward customs, etc, 
but extended to the physiognomy of the people and 
their natural ways and manners. The first walk, he 
said, that he took down the Strand on revisiting Eng- 
land, looking into the faces of the crowds he met, was 
a revelation to him. The men and women he saw 
appeared to him like another race from the men and 
women he had cast his eyes upon in a similar walk down 
the Strand a little more than half a century before. 
This was to me very interesting, as illustrating the 
impressions of one who had not had his perception 
of the difference of two generations blunted by passing 
through the observation of the intervening stages 
leading up to the change he found. 

Among the random reminiscences and reflexions in 
which I am taking the liberty of expanding myself 
in this chapter, I should not forget one or two amusing 
incidents in connexion with the London correspondent 
of a certain Italian newspaper, when he was in England. 
My Italian friend was one of the jolly-goodfellow sort, 
but possessed withal of a guileless disposition, which 
was taken advantage of at times by friends for the 
purpose of practical jokes, and by others for more 
sordid objects. One night, after having just cashed 
a cheque for five pounds in the club to which I belonged, 
and of which he was also a temporary member, he 
bought some evening journals at the corner of the 
Strand, handing, as he thought, five halfpennies to the 
newspaper boy. No sooner had he boarded his omni- 
bus, however, than it occurred to him that he had 



224 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

had no money, and had for that reason cashed a cheque, 
with the conclusion that he had paid five pounds for 
his evening papers. Springing hastily from the omni- 
bus, and rushing wildly back to the newspaper-selling 
corner, he found to his intense surprise that the boy 
was gone ! On another occasion, after a convivial 
evening with some friends in the neighbourhood of 
Fleet Street, one of them kindly offered to put him 
in a cab to take him home to Bloomsbury. Our guile- 
less one, who, as may be supposed, had partaken of^ 
a few whiskies in the course of the evening, fell off to 
sleep, and awoke anon to the consciousness of the fact 
that the cab-drive was an unusually long one for his 
destination. His attempted remonstrances with the 
cabman brought no result beyond the assertion that 
it was all right. Finally the cab drew up at the 
entrance to Finchley cemetery ! The consternation of 
our journalist may be better imagined than described 
on the cabman's asseveration that he had been in- 
structed to drive there by the gentleman who had 
hired him. 

An incident recalls itself that occurred to me in con- 
nexion with this same Itahan friend, which serves to 
illustrate the part imagination may play in an appar- 
ently plain and obvious matter. I had arranged with 
the friend in question to leave the club and walk up 
the Strand with him, but as I was detained in the club 
later than I expected, he proposed I should meet him 
in a quarter of an hour's time at the Strand telegraph 
office, where he was about, according to his custom, 
to dispatch his evening wire to Italy. Having finished 
what I was doing, I accordingly walked straight to the 
Strand telegraph office and inquired by name for our 



VARIORUM 225 

friend, who was known there, but was told to my sur- 
prise that he had not as yet called in that evening, 
l^he reason, I subsequently learnt, was that he had 
been taken aside by an acquaintance as he was about 
to leave the club, and had been detained by him in 
conversation some minutes, during which I, unknown 
to him, had left. But the sequel is interesting. I 
learnt the next day from him that a few minutes later 
than myself on the previous evening he had duly been 
at the telegraph office, and inquired whether any one 
had called there asking for him. The clerk replied that 
there had been only one gentleman, and that a few 
minutes previously. The gentleman in question, he 
said, was Italian in appearance, and spoke very broken 
English ! A promising illustration this of auto- 
suggestion for the psychologist ! 

Many frequenters of the Athenaeum will recall the 
figure of old Stuart Glennie, author of sundry books 
on anthropology and the philosophy of history. Glennie 
was an old member of that distinguished Hterary 
centre. A typical old Highlander, this side-line relic 
of the Stuarts was not an unattractive personality, 
albeit intellectually he was not specially strong. In 
intention he was excellent, in general a good Socialist, 
and a keen student of history and the origin of insti- 
tutions ; but the ideas which he elaborated in a some- 
what heavy and laborious style were not in themselves 
very original. Their main purport had been expressed 
before, and in many cases better expressed. Never- 
theless, there are to be found in his writings, here and 
there, aperQus and suggestions on the subject of the 
general movement of history that are not altogether 
to be despised. His was an active mind, though of 

15 



226 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

indifferent quality. In appearance and style, Glennie 
gave the impression of the old gaillard. Shaw has 
related to mcTiow he met him in Trafalgar Square at 
the proclaimed meeting of November 21, 1887, and 
how in the middle of a conversation he, suddenly point- 
ing with his umbrella to a movement in the crowd in 
another part of the square, charged off in that direction, 
as Shaw expressed it, " just as one of his ancestors 
might have done at CuUoden." 

Among the recruits to Socialism in England which 
the new century brought with it, a prominent figure 
was the Countess of Warwick. Lady Warwick had 
always taken a keen interest in the Education question, 
the feeding of the children at school, etc., but it was 
not, I believe, before the opening of the twentieth 
century that she definitely declared herself a Socialist, 
and joined the Social Democratic Federation. Her 
entry into the movement was followed by a f^te she 
gave to the London members of the body one Sunday 
in the Summer of 1905 at Easton Lodge, Essex, of 
which all present, I have no doubt, retain most agree- 
able recollections. I can well remember the occasion, 
and the democratic spirit in which this and a similar 
entertainment given a few years later were carried out 
as regards all the arrangements. Still more interesting 
personally are my remembrances of a week-end house- 
party at Easton Lodge, at which myself and my wife 
were guests, in company with Hyndman, the late 
Walter Crane, Hunter Watts, and their wives, and of 
the discussions on matters political and social which 
took place during our stay. Lady Warwick's gener- 
osity towards individual members of the party is too 
well known to need enlarging upon here. Her genuine 



VARIORUM* 227 

enthusiasm in all she undertakes sometimes leads her 
to underrate the difficulties in the carrying out of her 
intentions, but the disinterestedness which she has 
shown in attaching herself publicly to movements from 
which she has nothing personal, in the shape of material 
advantage or social or pohtical kudos, to gain, must 
always entitle her to the esteem of all democrats. 

The old school of Radicals of the Cobden-Bright 
period, the advanced men of the sixties and seventies, 
formed a well marked type, intellectually and other- 
wise. The very advanced ones were to be found during 
these decades in the Dialectical Society, a London 
Debating Club founded in the sixties for independent 
discussion of all questions. Although this rule was 
fairly well adhered to, there were certain sets of opinions 
which came specially to flourish among the members 
of the Society, and which were characteristic of the 
extreme Radicalism of the period, of which Neo-Malthu- 
sianism, as the movement for the limitation of families 
was called, was a conspicuous instance. The late Dr. 
Charles Drysdale was the chief protagonist of th^ view 
that poverty sprang from large families, and that the 
reduction of offspring, universally practised, would, 
if not precisely usher in the millennium, at least bring 
us halfway towards it. The notion sounds funny 
to-day, but at that time it was almost an article of faith 
amongst advanced Radicals, and was accepted as a 
self-evident proposition by almost all the members 
of the Dialectical Society. Secularism, in the cruder 
form which obtained iti the ranks of popular freethought 
at the time, was also largely represented in the Society, 
of which Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Bcsant were 
prominent members. Shaw also was a frequent atteu- 



228 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

dant at the -bi-monthly meetings, which took place 
in the later period of its existence at Langham Hall, 
Great Portland Street. The Society was rather an 
odd mixture. While it was not infrequently addressed 
by men of eminence in their several departments, and 
in its membership were to be found some persons of 
good intellectual standing, it was largely composed of 
intelligent self-educated, middle-class men and women. 
I believe it finally ceased to exist somewhere at the end 
of the eighties, though I do not know the precise date 
or circumstances of its ultimate fate. The last meet- 
ing I attended must have been somewhere about 1887. 
It was held in a hall off Holborn, if I remember rightly. 
I was the lecturer of the evening, and delivered an 
address traversing the pretensions of Feminism, Shaw 
being in the chair. This was the last I knew of it 
directly, though I believe it dragged on an existence 
for some time longer. 

Talking of the Dialectical Society and the old school 
of Radicals reminds me of a prominent member of 
the Society referred to in an earUer chapter — of a man 
who was of some mark in journalism and the journal- 
istic side of Uterature in his day. Fox Bourne. He 
was at one time editor of the Examiner, in which 
capacity, it should be said, he was strenuous in carrying 
out those principles of free discussion and just judgment 
of unpopular causes which he had advocated all his 
life. He was also the author of a " Life of John Locke " 
in two volumes, which, as he himself admitted, was -open 
to adverse criticism, and in fact was not altogether 
ajiterary success. But the work for which Fox Bourne 
will be best remembered was as the founder and secre- 
tary and the leading spirit of the Aborigines' Protection 



VARIORUM 229 

Society. He was untiring in his advocacy of the 
claims of native races against the European exploiter 
and the military martinet acting in the service of the 
exploiter. Fox Bourne's intentions in this matter 
were admirable, and if he failed in some cases to do 
all he might have done, it was often owing to his not 
understanding the true nature of the Capitalism whose 
interest it is to exploit backward races and seize their 
land. For though,- as I incidentally mentioned in a 
former chapter, he was at one time a frequent visitor 
at Karl Marx's house, he never understood the mean- 
ing of modern scientific Socialism. I knew him well, 
especially in his later years, and, agreeable as. he was, 
I always found him hidebound in the ideas of the old 
individualistic middle-class Radicals of the mid-Vic- 
torian period. Not long before his death, I dined 
with him and the late Roger Casement at a West End 
London Club. The unfortunate Roger Casement, it 
should be said, was at that time doing good work in 
connexion with the Congo. My impression of Fox 
Bourne will remain as that of an eminently sincere, 
just, and consistent man, but one whose mind was 
unadaptable to new ideas, and whose outlook conse- 
quently remained throughout his later life extremely 
limited. 

Another man who was one of the founders of the 
Dialectical Society, and a constant and prominent 
figure there in its halcj^on days, was J. H. Levy, who 
used to pride himself on being an ultra-individualist. 
While holding in the main most of the planks of the 
old political RadicaUsm, his gospel always remained 
Mill's " Essay on Liberty." His hatred of all State 
action, other than that of the barest and most necessary 



230 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

police regulation, was an obsession with him. His 
political faith might be summed up in the phrase 
laisser /aire a outrance. Yet, like Fox Bourne, Levy 
was ^ scrupulously tolerant person, always ready to 
give his opponents a fair hearing, who regarded free 
discussion as the first of the rights of man. He was 
prepared, indeed, to press this point against all comers, 
and on one occasion, as he told me, he got into hot- 
water with some of his political friends by inviting a 
prominent Socialist to state his case, at one of a series 
of meetings organized by a well-known Liberal club, 
against the wishes of some of the members of the 
organizing committee, of which he acted as secretary. 
Levy, it may be said, left the irnpression upon all who 
knew him, friends and foes alike, of a man of thorough 
sincerity in word and deed. As a mattei of fact, he 
devoted his life, without fee or reward, to the pro- 
mulgation of the theories he believed in. 

About the year 1886, R. B. Cunninghame Graham 
began to come prominently before the British public 
as an advanced democratic leader. Unlike Stuart 
Glennie, who sprang from a side branch of the Stuarts, 
Cunninghame Graham, I believe, as the great-grandson 
of the Earl of Monteith who took part in the Jacobite 
Rebellion of '45, can claim descent from the direct 
line of Stuart ancestry. His picturesque appearance, 
recaUing as some say Vandyke's Charles the First, and 
others a Spanish hidalgo of the sixteenth century, 
contributed undoubtedly to spread his fame. A fluent 
speaker, though hardly a brilliant orator, Graham soon 
found himself in the forefront of the democratic and 
Socialist movement of the latter years of the nineteenth 
century, but somehow or other, after his first few years of 



VARIORUM 231 

public life, he never made any further headway as a 
popular leader or as a political influence. Defeated at 
the General Election of 1892, he largely gave up active 
political work and devoted himself to literature. He 
mainly excels in shorter sketches of men and countries, 
in which his light touch and characteristic style have 
given him a well-earned success. Socially, Cunninghame 
Graham is the most charming of men, but there is one 
point in his character which has been adversely anim- 
adverted upon by some of his best friends, and that 
is his passion for fashionable dress. He never appears, 
or at least I and others have never seen him, either in 
public or in private, save in the latest most superb 
Bond Street cut, with material to match, and this has 
given the profane cause to make allusions to the " tailor's 
block." This passion for playing the part of the 
sartorial figure is perhaps less excusable, seeing that 
our friend Graham is the happy possessor of a striking 
face and figure, such as would assert itself in any cos- 
tume, even the simplest, to the advantage of the wearer. 
Speaking of Cunninghame Graham leads me to recall 
a friend of his, a strange Scotchman, whose name, if 
I remember rightly, was Stirling, who wrote a weird 
book, published anonymously, entitled " The Canon," 
which I can best describe as a quasi-mystical inter- 
pretation of certain principles the author found running 
through the history of architecture. The book I re- 
viewed at some length at the time in the Daily Chronicle. 
This man, who led a lonely life in lodgings off the south 
side of the Strand, appeared suddenly to take on 
illusions as to being persecuted by certain females on 
the ground of his alleged attentions to some girl or 
other. Not having seen him for some time after the 



232 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

interview in which he had disclosed his fears in this 
connexion, myself and a friend, who also knew him, 
decided to call at his address and inquire if he were 
away or ill. The servant who opened the door at 
first gave somewhat evasive replies to our inquiries. 
She subsequently admitted, however, that Stirling 
was no longer living, going on to tell us that his letters 
had accumulated for fully a week before his closed and 
locked bedroom door ; and when at last an entrance 
was forcibly effected, poor Stirling was found stretched 
out on the bed, dead, with his throat cut. 

I will conclude the present chapter with the name 
of a man whose personality has a double interest. His 
life-long championship, through good report and 
through evil report, of Internationalism and anti- 
patriotism, as patriotism is understood to-day, is well 
known. The name of Felix Moscheles is famihar in 
connexion with the International Peace and Arbi- 
tration Association. A special interest also attaches 
to Felix Moscheles as the son of the eminent pianist 
and composer of pianoforte music, Ignaz Moscheles, 
and as the godson of Fehx Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 
whose forename he bears. The aged and refined face 
and figure of Felix Moscheles (he is eighty-four at the 
time of writing) is one to impress itself on the memory. 
Age has certainly not staled his enthusiasm in the 
cause to which he has devoted his life. The journal 
Concord, which he edits and largely writes, in con- 
junction with the secretary of the Peace Association, 
Mr. J. F. Green, is evidence of this. Many are the 
anecdotes Moscheles has to tell of the music and musicians 
of the first half of the nineteenth century, especially 
of his father's closest friend, Mendelssohn ; but as these 



VARIORUM 233 

are mostly recorded in his own autobiographical memoirs, 
it would be superfluous to reproduce them here. He 
has taken great interest in collecting and preserving 
mementoes of the older classical composers, possessing 
autograph scores, besides numbers of letters from the 
great German masters of the early nineteenth century. 
A particularly precious relic is a curl from the head of 
Beethoven, with whom his father as a young man was 
acquainted. Felix Moscheles's pleasantest recollections 
of his days as an art student in Paris connect themselves 
with Rossini, at whose house at Passy he was a fre- 
quent visitor. Meyerbeer, I believe, he also knew. 
He speaks of Auber as a somewhat disagreeable man 
socially, and says that this was also the opinion of 
his father and Mendelssohn. I should not forget to 
mention Moscheles's gifts as an artist. While his 
" genre " painting is sufficiently striking, it will be 
probably on his skill as a portrait-painter that his future 
fame will rest. He has in this branch a singular faculty 
of reproducing the finest shades of expression in his 
sitters. His portraits of Mazzini, of Geoige Jacob 
Holyoake, of the late William Clarke, the journalist, 
and many more, afford evidence of what is said. 



CHAPTER XI 
WHEN THE WAR CAl^IE 

In considering the attitude of the world in July 
1914, one irresistibly recalls the passages in the Gospels 
referring to the advent of the expected Messiah : " Two 
men shall be in the field, two women shall be grinding 
at the mill," etc. This idea of the daily round, 
and the utter unexpectedness of a catastrophic event, 
was certainly realized in the Summer days of July 1914. 
Those who gave the European situation more than a 
cursory thought were few indeed among the general 
public. One day, about the middle of July, I was 
walking across Piccadilly Circus with an intimate 
friend, a weU-known London publisher, when on the 
latter making some observation upon some current 
political topic, probably the Irish Home Rule question, 
I replied that all that was of no immediate interest or 
importance, but what really mattered was what was 
passing in Central and Eastern Europe, where the 
situation seemed to be big with stupendous events. 
My friend expressed surprise at the time, as he had 
not been particularly following the course of inter- 
national politics recently, but he has more than once 
reminded me of the circumstance, which I had almost 
forgotten, during the last two years. As it was with 

»34 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 235 

this cultured and active-minded man, so it was, only 
very much more so, with the average British man or 
woman. The political horizon of the British public 
was bounded by Ulster, Sir Edward Carson, and Home 
Rule. The social and domestic horizon was filled by 
the usual round of business and summer interests, 
week-ends, cricket, prospective holiday arrangements. 
I can well remember having occasion to call on relations 
on the afternoon of the eventful Saturday, the ist of 
August, itself. I found them preparing to go to a 
cricket match ! No interest, in fact, in the European 
crisis was visible with the general British public before 
the last week in July, when the possibility of the great 
upheaval seemed quite suddenly to dawn on this 
unimaginative intellectual element. It was on the 
Wednesday in the week in question that one first 
noticed anxious faces, groups discussing the question, 
and public interest generally aroused. Even then, as 
above shown, it was only partial. There were plenty 
of circles still/ 3btuse to the actualities. 

On Sunday, the 2nd of August, I attended the great 
Peace demonstration in Trafalgar Square, to which 
Sociahst bodies, Radical clubs, and Trades Unions 
sent their delegations. The meeting was well attended, 
the Square being nearly full, but during the proceed- 
ings the boys appeared with the " specials " announcing 
the violation of the Luxemburg territory. Little 
attention was paid to the speakers, and there seemed 
to be a feeling of unreality about the whole proceedings. 
Everybody seemed to feel that the die was cast, and 
that the exhortations to peace amounted to little 
more than idle talk. As the meeting was being brought 
to a close, a heavy shower of rain hastened the dispersal 



236 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

of the crowds, and in a few minutes I found myself 
in the vestibule of my club, where numbers of members 
and their friends, fresh from the Square, had already 
taken refuge. Suspense and excitement were on all 
faces that Sunday evening. The sound of half-sup- 
pressed conversation made itself everywhere heard. 

The next day, the Monday, which was Bank Holiday, 
I received from my son in Paris a letter stating that 
he was trying to get away, as Paris was no longer safe 
to remain in. Hurrying to town to ascertain as far 
as possible what routes were open, I noticed two or 
three of the customary wagonettes with their load of 
Bank Holiday makers bent on a day's outing in the 
country, but only two or three. In place of the usual 
Bank Holiday emptiness of the London streets, I found 
groups of people in the chief West End thoroughfares. 
Parliament Street and Whitehall were particularly 
noticeable in this respect. The approach to the Foreign 
Office was barred by the police. The club, usually 
deserted on an August Bank Holiday, was as full as 
the streets. Relieved of anxiety for my son by re- 
ceiving a telegram announcing his arrival in London, 
I remained in the club to hear the parliamentary news 
read out, as it came up on the tape, to the assembled 
members in the smoking-room. 'Everybody (including 
the London correspondents of some German papers 
who had for long been temporary members of the 
club) was breathlessly awaiting news of the decision 
of the Cabinet as regards war or peace, but no decision 
came that day, and not before the afternoon of the 
following day, Tuesday, the 4th of August, with the 
arrival of the telegrams announcing the invasion of 
Belgium, was the ultimatum of the British Government 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 237 

proclaimed, which was to take effect the ensuing mid- 
night. On Wednesday, the 5th of August, accordingly, 
all England woke up to the fact that the country was 
at war, not with native races in backward parts of the 
earth, or with the Dutch colonists of South Africa, but 
with the first of Europe's military Powers. Many 
people seemed stunned by the sudden realization of 
the fact. A certain panic was universal, which chiefly 
took the form of a dread of scarcity. All the gold 
possible had already been drawn out of the banks to 
be hoarded in private. Preposterous stores of pro- 
visions were laid in by many households against the 
contingency of Britain's food supply being cut off. 
People were in vain adjured to go about their " busi- 
ness as usual," but somehow or other business did not 
seem to be quite as usual. As will be remembered, a 
moratoriimi was at once proclaimed, and the banks 
officially closed till the Friday of that fateful first week 
of August. A general distraction fell upon the popu- 
lation, none knowing what was coming. Yet such 
is mankind that in a few weeks matters quieted down, 
and the population of the British Islands got, in some 
measure at least, used to the new conditions. 

To follow the events of the war from this time forward 
would lie altogether outside the scope of the present 
book. During the terrible period we have traversed 
since that August week of 19 14, I have resided partly 
near London and partly, and indeed for longer periods, 
in the South of France. Thus I have had the oppor- 
tunity of watching the effect of the course of events on 
the psychology of both the British and the French 
populations. Of the former it is perhaps as yet too 
early to form any generalizations, but as regards the 



288 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

latter there is one change as compared to the traditional 
behaviour of the French temperament which cannot 
fail to strike every one at a glance. Hitherto, in 
national crises, and in none more than in the war of 
1870, nothing has been more noticeable than the con- 
tinued recurrence of gusts of excitement and panic. 
Nous sommes trahis was the cry on the occasion of 
every slight reverse, or absence of actual success. Men 
fancied spies everywhere. A state of nerves was 
chronic in the population. To-day, how very different 
the aspect of affairs ! The impression gained by ms 
in the course of a residence in both countries during 
the war is that of the two populations the British 
was more " nervy " than the French. The quiet, 
solid reasonableness with which the French popu- 
lation has behaved during the present crisis is the 
more remarkable in contrast to what it has been on 
former occasions, when one considers the fact of the 
occupation of a considerable section of French territory 
by the invader. Such a contrast is surely noteworthy, 
even if we discount the effects of the change in the French 
military system since the last war. Another point worth 
mention is the altered aspect of the French town, includ- 
ing Paris, since the war. The proverbial French gaiety 
has disappeared from the surface of things. The bands 
on the terraces of the cafes, so familiar to the residents 
and visitors of French towns, were no longer to be 
seen or heard after the outbreak of hostilities. Similarly, 
closed theatres, and the absence of all forms of public 
entertainment, was the rule. In the early period of 
the war even the terraces ot the cafes themselves were 
abolished in some towns, no one being served except 
inside. These and sundry other severities in public 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 289 

manners, however, were subsequently relaxed. But 
all the same the traditional lightheartedness, and, as 
unkind British critics of the Puritan persuasion used 
to have it, the " frivolity " of the French temperament, 
has certainly been nowhere in evidence since the war 
began. 

I have spoken of the aspect on the eve and on the 
outbreak of the war. In Paris, as I heard from my 
son on his arrival in London, there had been no very 
serious apprehension on the part of the people at large, 
till the Saturday, the ist of August, when the fateful 
declaration came from Berlin. Thereupon the panic 
was indescribable, and not least among the foreign 
population, who were given twenty-four hours to leave 
Paris without formalities. But the difficulty was the 
money question. There was no change to be got any- 
where. All the silver seemed to have disappeared 
as if by magic. The rush of the eager, clamouring 
crowds at all the great railway termini to obtain 
tickets, where no change was given, can hardly be 
imagined. The lucky ones who succeeded in boarding 
the trains counted themselves happy if they could 
squeeze into a guard's van or on to a goods 
truck. 

But what of the provincial towns of France lying 
on the eastern and north-eastern frontier, in the way 
of the threatening invasion ? As an illustration of 
this a friend resident in Rheims has kindly furnished 
me with the following particulars : 

" The opinion generally expressed in Rheims was 
that some means would be found to avoid war. One 
of my friends called to the colours, on departing, 
said, ' Don't worry : it's only a false alarm ; I'll be 



240 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

back in a few days.' Poor fellow, he never will come 
back. 

" The mobilization order was posted up on the first 
day of August, and strangers had to report themselves 
at the Town Hall. On going there, we found the great 
courtyard full of a seething mass of humanity. It 
took many days to deal with all these foreigners, and 
the people of Rheims were amazed to see how many 
enemy aUens were living in their midst. The authorities 
seemed very determined to rid the town of them all, 
and no pennits to stay were given. This gave rise to 
some sad scenes. I remember noticing an intelligent- 
looking Hungarian, who was parted from his children 
and their French mother, for want of the legal knot. 
He was an enemy alien and must go ; his famUy were 
French and must remain. We left him weeping bitterly. 

' ' About this time we saw the departure of several 
battalions of a famous regiment of the first Une of 
defence. The first battalion left near midnight, almost 
secretly. There was no enthusiasm, hardly a spectator. 
They marched along, silent and grave. There was no 
flinching, and there would be none, though they were 
marching to their doom. 

"It may not be historically correct to describe Eng- 
land as taking France's part, but that is how her declara- 
tion of war against Germany was construed. The 
effect was magical ; foreboding gave place to confidence. 
So the departure of the second battalion was marked 
by scenes of enthusiasm. The soldiers were decked 
out in flowers. Their tread was martial. Courage 
and determination seemed to radiate from their ranks. 
The contrast between these two scenes made a profound 
impression on me. 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 241 

" The prompt answer of the nation to the call to arms 
was grand. All classes of society, from working men 
to learned professors, might be seen in those terrible 
red trousers which, it is said, cost the French troops 
such heavy losses in the early months of the war. I 
did not hear of one ' conscientious objector,' though 
there can have been no illusion as to the deadly nature 
of the ordeal before them. 

"Opinions as to the result of the war fluctuated a 
good deal. We had no official news of French disasters, 
and were easily elated by the great Servian victories, 
and by the Russian advance, which would land our 
allies so soon in Berlin. But whatever elation those 
distant victories provoked soon gave way, before the 
steady advance of the German armies on Paris, to a 
feeling of hopelessness. ' What can we do against 
such desperate odds ? ' people asked. And when the 
Germans occupied our town, many said to me, ' I sup- 
pose we are Prussians now ! ' or words to that effect. 
There was a feeling of despair — that all was lost, and 
that nothing remained, as even the most sanguine 
people said, but to make peace, pay an indemnity as 
in '70, and wipe the slate clean again. 

" The town was administered admirably by the Mayor, 
who was quite the man of the hour, and who formed 
committees to regulate every branch of the town's 
activities. Coin had disappeared from circulation ; 
it was replaced by paper money, the smallest coupon 
being 25 c. (2|d.). The prices of the principal articles 
of food were fixed, and so there was no rise. 

" Towards the end of August, Belgian soldiers who 
had escaped from Namur began to arrive. Then for 
daj^ there was a steady stream of refugees pouring in 

16 



242 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

from Mezi^res and that region. These people were of 
all ages and conditions. 'Most of them bore bundles 
on their backs or pushed baby- carriages loaded with 
a heterogeneous array of ill-assorted household goods — 
clocks, frying-pans, clothes, crockery, all thrown to- 
gether pell-mell, testifying to their hasty flight before 
the dreaded German invasion. In the last degree of 
exhaustion, they presented a most forlorn picture of 
* man's inhumanity to man.' For ten terrible days 
they had tramped along the highways, living for the . 
most part on what raw roots they could scratch up as 
they passed along, sinking by the roadside when they 
could drag themselves no farther. How the children 
survived I do not know. 

" Rheims gave them the kindliest welcome. They 
were housed, fed, and comforted, and then ,sent on, 
it was said, to the South of France. Some of them 
had terrible tales to tell of butchery and burnings, 
but most of them had their faculties too blunted by 
what they had gone through to give any account of 
themselves. 

" On September 3rd seven Uhlans rode in and estab- 
lished themselves at the Town Hall. Next day staff 
officers of the Saxon Army arrived, and while they were 
closeted with the Mayor the town was violently bom- 
barded. The Saxons accused the Mayor of treachery, 
and threatened terrible reprisals. It is already a 
matter of history how the Mayor proved conclusively, 
from fragments, that the shells were German ones, 
and thus saved the town from one of those scenes 
of bloody reprisals which characterized the German 
advance through Belgium and France. 

" Apart from this tragic event, the Saxon domination 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 248 

was bearable. Their requisitions, it is true, were on 
a vast scale. This organized robbery was evidently 
part of their campaign of ' frightfulness.' But the 
courage, energy, and diplomacy of the Mayor and his 
coadjutors conjured every peril. 

' ' The Saxon soldiery, speaking generally, were correct 
in their behaviour. What they bought they paid for 
in cash. I heard of very little thieving. Some of them 
could speak a little French, and made friendly advances 
to the inhabitants. I heard one of them explaining, 
with many gestures, that the Saxons were not Prus- 
sians, whom they detested — they were ' Saxon-EngUsch.' 
Another drew a coin from his pocket, and tapping the 
effigy of the Kaiser with his finger, exclaimed, ' Lui, 
tres mauvais ! ' 

" The officers were arrogant and highhanded. Every 
day saw some new proclamation threatening death 
for any breach of its regulations. They were also 
accused of plundering the houses they were billeted 
in. I was not brought much in contact with them, 
but found them poUte enough. 

" The Saxon occupation lasted barely ten days. On 
retreating, they carried off about one hundred hostages, 
whose names were posted up, and a proclamation an- 
nounced that they would all be ' hanged ' if the army 
were molested in its retreat. However, they came 
back safely, and reported that the commander had 
expressed his satisfaction with the conduct of the town, 
and promised that it should not be again bombarded. 
If he meant this as a joke, it was a grim one, for that 
same night the first shells of a bombardment that 
has already lasted more than two years (October 
1916) fell on the town, and the destruction of the 



244 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Cathedral of Rheims quickly followed this deceptive 
promise. 

" The bombardment which marked the entry of the 
victors made over one hundred victims. When we 
first saw those horribly mutilated and mangled bodies, 
lying in great pools of blood, all feelings of pity and 
compassion were swamped by the physical repulsion 
and nausea that overpowered us. Our one desire 
was to get away, and it required a tremendous effort to 
remain and render aid where it could be of any avail. 
As the recurrent bombardments inured us to the sight 
of death, I observed a change in our mental attitude. 
We no longer sought to avoid the ghastly sights result- 
ing from German ' frightf ulness,' but rather felt a morbid 
curiosity as to what had happened, and this developed 
into something like callousness. I do not think we 
felt less sorrow for suffering, but a certain numbness 
of sensation had befallen us. Yet we did not lose all 
capacity for emotion. We were Hving under the 
constant menace of a sudden and horrible death, and 
the ruthless and barbarous slaughter of so many 
innocent people, mostly old men, women, and children, 
aroused intense indignation. Anger, keen and vehe- 
ment, was openly expressed, and the Kaiser would have 
received a short shrift had he fallen into our hands. 

"Our only refuge from the shells was the cellars of 
the great champagne houses. It is difficult to give 
you a clear impression, in a few words, of life in those 
cellars. Imagine several hundred people, congregated 
in groups, lying on straw or boxes, on a cement flooring, 
fifty or sixty feet below ground, in semi-darkness, 
for there was but a candle every dozen yards or so. 
Little food but bread. No hot meals, though the 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 245 

manager made them tea as long as his stock lasted. 
Sanitary arrangements improvised in the most primitive 
manner. Many of the people never washed themselves, 
judging by appearances. The predominant emotion, 
fear, finding vent in vociferous apostrophes to the 
Deity, especially in moments of panic. It was a night- 
mare from which we were glad to escape when occasion 
at last offered. We found the quiet and tranquillity 
of Paris strange after the noise and devastation of 
Rheims. Nothing would induce us to repeat our 
experiences. But we shall not readily forget the dark 
champagne cellars, nor the kindness of those in charge 
of them." 

A noteworthy fact in connexion with the earlier 
period of the war was the ignorance in which both 
the French and British public were kept as to the 
course of events. Had they known of the great defeat, 
reported as a " check," of the French Army between 
Metz and Strasbiu"g, towards the end of August, or 
of the rout of Rennenkampf's army in East Prussia, a 
few days later, also reported as a " check," of the full 
extent of the reverses at Mons and Charleroi, or of the 
full significance of the march on Paris, there might 
have been something like a panic in both countries. 
The second week of September the battle of the Marne 
of course altered the face of the situation. But no 
one for weeks after realized the true import of the 
change consequent on that event, from the " war of 
movement " to the " war of positions." Up to this 
time the hostilities had been conducted pretty much 
on the accustomed lines of warfare — the sending out 
of scouts, followed by the advance of armies, en- 
gagements in the field, strategic manceuvrings, etc. 



246 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

From the middle of September onward the course of 
affairs began to change, till before another month had 
elapsed they had assumed quite another character, 
and one that maj^ fairly be said to have been unknown 
to the wars of previous European history. Though 
in aU warfare entrenchment has been an incident, 
yet it has been no more than a local incident, a matter 
of hours or at most of days. In the present war 
the case is quite different. Here entrenchment is the 
central fact of the war, the main factor on which 
the whole course of hostilities has turned, after the first 
two or three months of the campaigns on the various 
fronts. The causes of this great revolution in the 
conditions of warfare is of course a highly interesting 
subject of inquiry, but one which only a technically 
equipped and competent authority on mihtary matters 
can effectively handle. One consequence of the change 
is, however, sufficiently noticeable to the layman. 
Trench warfare on a great scale, as at present, would 
seem indefinitely to prolong a campaign by rendering 
decisive engagements highly improbable, where not 
impossible. In trench warfare a Waterloo or a Sedan 
is scarcely conceivable. The section of a line even 
seriously broken does not by any means necessarily 
imply a disastrous defeat for the army in question, 
which by judicious retreat and reconstitution of its 
line may quite well continue to operate as if nothing 
had happened to it, provided it has sufficient reserves. 
In former wars things were quite otherwise. 

The earlier stages of the war are remarkable for 
having been the soil on which originated among English 
people two thoroughgoing and elaborate myths of the 
approved antique pattern. The first of these was the 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 347 

story of the angels at Mons, and the second the wide- 
spread, and for a few days the almost universally 
accredited, report of the huge Russian army landed 
in Scotland, and sent down South to check the German 
advance on Paris. The angels at Mons, of course, 
had the usual vouchers in the shape of personal wit- 
nesses which are forthcoming wherever the super- 
natural is in question. Valiant British soldiers, as 
was alleged, swore to having seen something not of 
this earth, though as to precisely what it was the 
accounts varied. One version had it that it was a legion 
of angels that held up the German advance and saved 
the British battalions ; with others, it was the solitary 
figure of St. George on horseback, as impressed on 
the five-shilling piece. In deference to the French 
allies, there were, I think, one or two variants which 
identified the celestial visitation with the figure of 
St. Michael, and, if I remember rightly, of Jeanne d'Arc. 
According to the opinion of many persons the whole 
thing arose out of a little feuilleton by Mr. Arthur 
Machen in the Evening News, though there were others 
who strenuously denied this, alleging the reports in 
question to have originated before Mr. Machen's article 
appeared, and in any case quite independently of it. 
Be this as it may, among those who professed to believe 
the story were at least one popular Nonconformist 
minister, and, if I mistake not, two or three other 
members of the clerical profession well known to 
the public. 

The other myth referred to bore no overt relation 
to the supernatural, but presented all the character- 
istics of a true myth, notwithstanding. Here also the 
origin of the astounding report was untraceable. There 



248 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

was not even a Mr. Machen or a newspaper statement 
to fall back upon. The story of the Russian army 
landed in Scotland spread like wildfire from mouth to 
mouth among the public before it even got into the 
newspapers. Of this there is no question. People 
had seen blinded trains at various junctions and had 
caught a glimpse of undoubted Cossacks peering out 
of railway compartment windows. The evidence was 
such, indeed, as to deceive the very elect of true British 
caution and common sense. 

As already indicated, I was living near London when 
the war broke out, and remained there till the begin- 
ning of December, when circumstances urged me to 
go to Paris, partly for family reasons, and partly as a 
stage towards seeking my appartement in Nice, for 
considerations of health, during the winter months. 
TravelUng on the Continent just then was generally 
regarded as an unpleasant business. Many had been 
the stories told in the papers, during those early months 
of the war, of trains held up and their occupants turned 
out into some temporary shed, to make room for con- 
voys of wounded ; of other trains run into sidings 
and left there for hours, or it might be a day or two, 
with their passengers, in order to leave the line clear 
for the transport of troops. This being so, most 
civilians were disinclined to hazard their luck in crossing 
the Channel, an undertaking itself regarded as more 
or less risky, owing to the danger of submarines. Never- 
theless, accompanied by my wife and my friend the 
London publisher before alluded to, I went, albeit 
with ceitain misgivings of what might happen, this 
being my first experience of travelling, in war-time, 
through a tract of country that had been partially 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 249 

occupied by hostile troops not more than three months 
before, and which was still within comparatively short 
distance of the battle-front. . However, beyond an 
unpleasant and tempestuous Channel crossing, nothing 
happened. The journey from Boulogne to Paris by 
way of Beauvais, the railway viaduct near Amiens,, 
blown up by the Germans, not having as yet been 
rebuilt, passed off without incident, though it neces- 
sarily took some two hours longer than by the usual 
route. 

We found Paris itself quiet and wonderfully dark 
on our arrival. The next day further showed us a 
city chastened by adversity, but no signs of excite- 
ment or panic of any kind. The Boulevards looked, 
indeed, somewhat deserted as compared with ordinary 
times, but the restaurants and cafes were open as 
usual. My friend and myself having accomplished 
what we had to do in Paris, we started by the night 
train for the South, where we arrived, also without 
having encountered any incident suggestive of war- 
time, the following afternoon. It is interesting to note 
that, contrary to the experience of others at the time 
we are referring to, we were not challenged for our 
" papers " in Paris or on the journey. 

The winter of 1914-15 was naturally a gloomy one 
for the Mediterranean towns. At Nice the opera- 
house was closed, and the theatres likewise, leaving a 
few " cinemas " as the only form of popular enter- 
tainment to be indulged in. There was one thing, 
however, which agreeably distinguished the Mediter- 
ranean littoral from the places in the North nearer 
the seat of war. There was no restriction as to light- 
ing beyond what municipal parsimony. encoura.ged 



250 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

by the absence of visitors, suggested. For the rest, 
the dreary monotony of the daily bulletins of trenches 
taken, lost, or retaken, told on the spirits of the genial 
children of the South, no less than on those of less 
favoured climes. 

In dealing with the war, every Socialist is naturally 
brought up against the fact of the treachery to the 
fundamental principles of Socialism, as well as to 
International party ties, on the part of the Social 
Democratic members of the Reichstag, When we 
consider that but a few days before the outbreak of 
the war, both at the meeting of the International 
Socialist Bureau at Brussels and, on the part of cer- 
tain of the leaders at least, a day or two subsequently 
in Paris, the strongest assurances were given by members 
of the present majority of the Reichstag " fraction " 
that the German proletariat would never consent to 
fight their French brethren, and that the party mem- 
bers in the Reichstag would never vote war credits 
for the Government — when we consider this, the action 
of these very same men, and of the colleagues in whose 
name they spoke, scarcely more than a week later, 
must constrain the mildest and most indulgent critic 
to admit that history can hardly show a baser and a 
viler instance of treachery and broken pledges than 
their conduct. Of course, writing as I am before 
the end of the war, when most of what is going on 
in Germany is hidden from the view of the outer world, 
it would be unfair to assume that the majority of the 
Social Democratic Party throughout the country ought 
to be regarded as in any way accomplices in this act 
of treachery. Until a party Congress can be held 
at which all members of the party, those now at the 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 261 

front no less than those at home, can be represented 
and speak their minds freely through their delegates, 
we have no right to assume that the majority of the 
party in the country is in sympathy with the majority 
of the present Reichstag representation. We know, 
as a matter of fact, that the followers of Karl Lieb- 
knecht are numerous throughout Germany, but we do 
not know how numerous, or what proportion they 
represent to the other sections of the party. One 
thing is certain, however, and that is that, outside 
Germany, no one calling himself a Socialist should 
consent again to meet in Congress or to hold any 
intercourse whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, 
with traitors to the principles of Sociahsm, to the 
International Socialist Party, and to Humanity, such 
as the " majority " of the present representation of 
the Social Democratic Party in the Geiman Reichstag. 
It does not lie within the scope of this chapter, as 
conceived by the author, to provide one more of the 
fancy sketches of the pohtical reconstruction of Europe 
with which the British public has been regaled since 
the beginning of the war. It behoves all friends of 
progress and peace to look to it that the European 
democracy is not cheated, by any secret understanding 
among the governing classes of the Entente Sta.tes, of the 
full attainment of that object which has been so often 
officially proclaimed as that for which we are fighting 
— to wit, the extinction of Prussia as an independent 
military Power, and the reconstitution of the German 
States on the basis of equality in a loose federal bond, 
the necessary consequence of this. We may be good 
pro- Allies, but it is well for us not to forget that govern- 
ing classes are governing classes all the world over, 



252 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

have interests in common against the dempcracy, and 
that, as William Morris was fond of saying, " Dog 
doesn't eat dog ! " Into the details of the actual 
reconstruction after the war it is in m}' opinion prema- 
ture to enter at the present time of writing. 

The effect of the war upon the Socialist movement 
more or less in all, but especially in belligerent, countries 
has had its repercussion in Great Britain in the split 
in the British Socialist Party, and the foundation of 
a rival organization, the National Socialist Party, by 
a large and growing section of British Socialists, com- 
prising, almost to a man, all the surviving " old guard " 
of the pioneer Socialist body of this country, the old 
original Social Democratic Federation. 

From the beginning of the war was visible an 
inevitable tendency to scission between partisans of a 
" peace at any price," even at the price of leaving 
Prussian despotism and Prussian militarism intact, 
to continue to terrorize Europe and start another war 
probably in less than ten years' time, and those who 
wished to see the military monarchies of Central Europe 
destroyed once for all. and who cherished the hope at 
least that the present war, the most terrific in the 
world's history, may prove to be the last war, at least 
on a large scale. Those who take this view regard 
the Entente Powers as acting simply in the capacity of 
a politico-international police force to punish crime and 
aggression. 

There is an element in the psychology of the ultra- 
pacifist British Socialist which must not be lost sight 
of. It is the acute anti-patriotic bias which reduces 
political and ethical judgments to an absurdity. The 
bias implies that because Great Britain happens to be 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 253 

on a particular side, that side must necessarily be in 
the ^rong and its enemies in the right. Now, it is 
quite true that in the colonial wars of the nineteenth 
century, and last, but not least, in the Boer War which 
ushered in the present century, this country has almost 
invariably played an aggressive and criminal role as 
a State. Hence the moral judgment of all fair-minded 
and disinterested persons, with a strength of con- 
science sufficient to resist the " jingo " or patriotic 
bias, has condemned the policy of this country. In 
that most flagrant case, the Boer War, so much bitter- 
ness was engendered, and the moral sense of a large 
section of Englishmen was so much shocked by the 
ofiScial conduct of their country, that it is not perhaps 
surprising that the strength of the anti-British bias 
then engendered should still be operative, especially 
among certain sections of Radicals and Socialists who 
bore the heat and burden of the protest at that time. 
This, there is no doubt, is the underlying cause of much 
of the Pacifism and pro-Germanism in England to-day. 
It is, nevertheless, strange to find such an utter lack 
of logical faculty in these worthy persons that they 
cannot see that precisely the same moral principles 
which led them to execrate the action of Great Britain 
in the Boer War ought necessarily to lead them to 
execrate the action of Germany in the present war. 
To allow one's anti-patriotic bias to run so wild as 
to kick over all the bounds of ethico- political logic 
seems scarcely compatible with the sane mind. Yet 
so it is. In addition to this, of course, certain well- 
known fallacies play their part, as, for example, the 
obsession alluded to by Mill in one of his chapters on 
Fallacies (" Logic," vol. ii. p. 351), to wit, that there must 



254 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

always be faults on both sides, an obsession which blinds 
a man to truth and justice when it is to be found 
on one side only, as it very often is. Another fallacy 
which in this as in other cases is apt to lead the 
ordinary man astray, is the confusion of issues. 
This fallacy of the untrained mind is very much 
in evidence amongst the pacifist and pro-German 
Socialists. Because Socialists have attacked all exist- 
ing governments as institutions for the mainten- 
ance of the present class-State, in the interests 
of Capitalism and land-monopoly, it is therefore 
argued that we cannot take the side of the Allied 
States in the present war for the overthrow of the 
Prussian military power. Here comes in the fallacy 
of failing to grasp the bearings of a specific issue. The 
Allied Powers may have all the evil quahties in their 
governmental institutions, as in the economic system 
common to all existing States, that Socialist criticism 
ascribes to them, and yet they may be wholly in the 
right as regards the specific issue of this war. The 
distinction is recognized in common life. The most 
strenuous votary of the Nonconformist conscience 
would presumably not trip up a policeman while chasing 
a burglar, on the ground that he was a person of 
immoral life. In most cases, indeed, he would hardly 
claim it to be his duty, on the above ground, even to 
refuse him his active assistance to capture the burglar. 
He would generally have sense enough to recognize that 
the question of the private conduct of the policeman's 
life, and his act of apprehending a burglar, were two 
distinct and irrelevant issues. And so it is with this 
war. Russian despotism at home and British earth- 
hunger abroad do not affect the issue of the present 



WHEN THE WAR CAME 255 

struggle. However bad in themselves these charac- 
teristics of the States in question may be, their policy 
may nevertheless be wholly justified in its resistance 
to Prussian aggression. 

There is another thing to be observed in this con- 
nexion. Although the colonial policy and the colonial 
wars of England have, almost invariably, from any 
consistently Democratic or Socialist point of view, 
been infamous, yet British action in continental politics 
has not quite invariably been so. Thus, though the 
war with revolutionary France organized by Pitt in 
the interests of European reaction was scandalous 
enough, the later campaign for the overthrow of the 
military empire of Napoleon I was undoubtedly in 
the interests of the peaceful development of Europe 
generally, apart from any legitimate patriotic justi- 
fication it may have had in removing from the country 
the threat of invasion. The present situation is in 
some respects analogous. In place of the French 
Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte we have the Prusso- 
German Empire of the Hohenzollerns. In either case 
the war represents the resistance of Europe to an 
aggressive military despotism. As to the ultimate 
issue of the war, the terms of peace, etc., at the time 
of writing it would seem futile, as already said, to 
enter on any discussion. I may remark, however, 
that I agree with my friend Jules Guesde in deprecating 
any far-reaching cutting-up of German territory, while 
holding fast by the principle of the absolute and final 
destruction of the military power of the Central Mon- 
archies. The future of Germany, it seems to me, 
should take the form of a loose federation of the different 
German States, without the hegemony of any one 



256 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

State, with no military power beyond that of a local 
State militia, in general analogous to that of Switzer- 
land, but without any central or national directing 
power, or Ober-commando. This would seem to repre- 
sent the general terms, the 'minimum conditions, under 
which a lasting peace with the Central Nations (I 
expressly forbear to say the Central Powers) could be 
effected. 



CHAPTER XII 

CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 

In thinking back on the course of one's past life, there 
are obviously many interesting reflexions which are 
suggested.! One such presented itself to me recently, 
when I bethought me that my own personal memory- 
synthesis included within its purview a span of time 
equal to that of the whole life of Shakespeare. It was 
while reading the two monumental volumes on Shake- 
speare's England, recently published for the three- 
hundredth anniversary of his birth by the Clarendon 
Press, that I was led to recall the above circumstance. 
The celebration of the anniversary of Shakespeare's 
birth in the year 1864 I can distinctly remember. I 
was at Brighton as a boy at the time, and I believe 
was taken to hear one of the many discourses that 
were being delivered on the Bard of Avon in the Spring 
of that year. It was about the time that Garibaldi 
paid his celebrated visit to England and was received 
with the wildest demonstrations of enthusiasm. From 
that time to this my memory of the main flow of events 
is of course distinct, and more or less continuous, and 
it is somewhat startling to reflect that this span of 

' I must ask the reader to excuse these concluding reflexions 
being somewhat varied. Their connexion one with another 
consists mainly in their reference to the present time and its 
contrast to former periods within my personal experience. 

17 ,57 



258 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

time, covered by one's own mental experience, repre- 
sents the whole life-period of the immortal one. Such 
a reflexion as the above is only one of the many to 
which the advance of age in oneself gives rise. 

The changes in opinion and attitude in the British 
mind, as decade succeeded decade, and much more, 
of course, as generation succeeded generation, during 
the lifetime of the present writer, have been already 
dwelt upon in the course of these reminiscences. As 
illustrating again a remarkable change which has- 
taken place within the present century owing to the 
progress of mechanical invention, I may note an inci- 
dent which happened to me about the middle of the 
nineties, i.e. not much more than twenty years ago. 
I was speaking at a Socialist meeting, and on some 
objection being raised to a suggestion I made, on the 
ground of its involving difficulties of transit, or 
something to that effect, I repUed that the problem 
of aerial locomotion would probably have been solved 
before long, and that airboats and flying-machines 
would not only supplement, but might even have 
superseded, the then existing methods of transit. It 
seems worth recording to-day that this remark of mine, 
made less than a quarter of a century ago, was greeted 
at the time with a roar of laughter from the audience, 
who evidently regarded it as the mad dream of an 
unpractical, scatterbrained Utopian, if not as an 
intentional joke. Looking back at the incident from 
the standpoint of to-day, one is inclined to think what 
fools peopled the world in the nineties. Yet we see 
similar instances of short-sightedness, even among 
people at other times the most intelligent. 

The power to rise above the ruts of thought in which 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 259 

one has grown up is not everybody's affair. The 
members of my audience in the nineties had been 
accustomed all their lives to the notion of flying- 
machines and dirigible aircraft as no better than a 
whimsical crankism. They had never taken the trouble 
to reflect on the implications of the bird's flying power, 
and of the quite obvious possibility of imitating and 
reproducing mechanically the organic conditions on 
which it is founded. 

To take an illustration from another department. 
Some years ago the Socialist lecturer was constantly 
met by would-be wiseacres with the assertion that 
the stimulus of necessity, and in the last resort of 
hunger, was requisite to induce men to work at all, 
laziness being one of the fundamental characteristics 
of what they were pleased to term " human nature," 
They had heard this thesis proclaimed as an axiom, 
by those whom they deemed sagacious persons, from 
their youth up, and never having taken the trouble 
to look closer into the motives of men, they had come 
to regard any theory which ignored it as an absurdity. 
This is a remarkable instance of the short-sightedness 
of the average man, since it requires such a very little 
study, or even ordinary observation, of " human 
nature " to show that the theory is baseless. In the 
first place, the phrase " human nature " itself is a 
very vague one, since in the course of Man's evolution 
it has changed its character on so many sides. But 
let this pass. By " human nature " the persons in 
question generally mean the human nature of them- 
selves and their neighbours, in other words, human 
nature as moulded by the capitalist civilization of the 
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Let us then take 



260 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the men and women surrounding us to-day. If we 
do, we shall find that in every average normal man 
or woman there undoubtedly exists a strain of aversion 
to excessive toil, yet that there is an equal aversion 
to absolute idleness. Find me the most leisured man 
without the slightest necessity of earning his liveli- 
hood who yet does not choose to work at something 
or other, very often of a quite unremunerative character. 
I don't say it is always useful work, by any means, 
but yet it is work, and sometimes hard work, and 
not idleness. Even the man who devotes himself to 
athletics, or to games such as football or cricket, as a 
serious business in life, without fee or reward, though 
it may be a question whether he is doing anything 
useful, is certainly not idle or lazy. He toils, and 
sometimes very hard, when there is absolutely no 
necessity for his doing so. Again, look around to-day 
at the numbers of men, some of them men of means, 
many of them leaving good and easy positions in their 
several walks of life, who have voluntarily accepted, 
not only the chances of death on the battlefield, but 
the arduous labours of the trenches, and that not 
merely without any prospect of material gain, but 
at a positive material loss to themselves. Once more, 
look at the hundreds of women who, equally without 
any stimulus of gain or economic necessity, have under- 
taken heavy, and in itself often unpleasant, work as 
nurses. And these cases are more the rule than the 
exception during these last three years. Oh, but, you 
will say, the force of public opinion drove these men 
and women to hard and unremunerative labour. Even 
if the statement be admitted up to a certain point, 
can those who say this be so dense as not to see that, 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 261 

in a Society organized on a Socialist basis, an infinitely 
stronger force of public opinion would constrain men 
and women to fulfil their moderate and just share of 
the necessary work of the world ? One would not 
deny the existence of pathological specimens of 
humanity to whom all work is distasteful. But such 
are so exceptional as to be negligible from a practical 
point of view. The tendency to exaggerate their 
numbers by superficial and thoughtless people is due 
to the fact that under the present anarchic conditions 
of society so many men are forced by circumstances 
to seek their livelihood in uncongenial occupations. 
That such persons should show an inclination at times 
to shirk the uncongenial work to which circumstances 
have condemned them does not by any means imply 
that they are averse to all work. In a reasonable 
society this fact of " human nature " would of course 
be taken into account. There are few men for whom 
some form of useful labour is not endurable or even 
attractive. The thing is, in the process of the education 
of youth, to find out what this special form of work 
is. To do so is indeed one of the most important 
functions of educational training, though as yet this 
function has been entirely neglected. And even if it 
had not been so, the results obtained would have been 
largely useless under present capitalistic conditions. 

One of the changes which distinguishes the present 
generation from those preceding is undoubtedly the 
tendency to a mistrust of all conventional shibboleths. 
The present generation is quite prepared to reconsider 
all positions. What would formerly have been con- 
sidered paradox is the breath of its intellectual life. 
This tendency to paradoxism with the modern man, 



262 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

healthy though it be in itself, is, as I have already 
pointed out in a former chapter, apt at times to run 
to excess, as possibly in the case of Shaw and his 
perennial paradox-joke. Shaw undoubtedly has the 
signal merit of having stimulated the mind of the 
English-speaking peoples to independent thought and 
Socratic questionings, but it is doubtful whether 
the backwash of his influence has not tended to 
promote a craving for paradoxical fare intellectually, 
which — on the analogy of the much decried craving 
for alcohol, or for highly spiced condiments gusta- 
tively — has destroyed all taste intellectually for 
plain statements of fact, not wearing the garb of 
paradox. Now, this is certainly not healthy. The 
well-known Delphic motto " Nothing in excess " applies 
as much to paradox as to anything else. In fact, the 
excess in the case of paradox, if without measure, may 
well have the result on the coming generation of pro- 
ducing a reaction by sheer surfeit. This may for the 
time being obscure the good effect left by the critical 
spirit aroused in the existing generation, with the 
consequence of a general reactionary falling back on 
old and exploded dogmatic positions, by way of relief. 
Such reactions are common phenomena in history. 
The well-known case of the generation succeeding the 
French Revolution may serve, mutatis mutandis, as an 
illustration. The present generation does not fully 
realize that mere paradoxical brilliancy and smartness, 
like everything else, may pall after a time upon the 
intellect satiated with it. 

Again, among the special fashions of the present 
time is the one before alluded to in passing, namely, 
the elevation of the nation-State into a god or object 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 263 

orf supreme devotion, with a corresponding cult of its 
own, which has really, if not nominally, substituted 
itself for the old religious faith. Of this sentiment, 
which in its present form as Imperialism is traceable 
for thirty years or more back, and has, as one might 
expect, been accentuated a hundredfold by the present 
war, it is unnecessary to speak. In antithesis to this 
cult of Patriotism, now dominant, stands the Inter- 
nationalist principle of Socialism. It has been often 
said of late that Internationalism does not mean Anti- 
nationahsm. But if it does not mean Anti-nationalism 
it certainly means anti- Imperialism. And more than 
this, the Internationalism of the consistent Socialist 
certainly does imply the relegation of nationality, or 
race, and all that it connotes, to a place secondary to 
that of Humanity. In what I may term the religion 
of Patriotism, of which we hear so much nowadays. 
Humanity merely exists as a background to " one's 
country." The first consideration is the material 
aggrandizement and the moral honour and glory of 
the nation-State into which one has been born. This 
is the first consideration with modern Imperialism, 
which is the form in which Patriotism inevitably clothes 
itself, in the case of a nationality that is also a great 
World-Power. 

The conflict between these two principles. Imperial- 
ism and Internationalism, between national material 
interest on the one side, as opposed to human interest 
with its moral sanctions on the other, can hardly fail 
to constitute one of the great issues of the world in 
the near future. I say this in the full consciousness 
of the fact that for the time being the principle of 
Internationalism seems to have suffered a defeat at 



264 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

the hands of its rival, convinced as I am that it is no 
real defeat, but merely a temporary set-back ; and 
furthermore, that there are many among those who 
are heart and soul with the cause of the Allies in the 
present war who are so, less on the ground of Patriot- 
ism than from a desire to see justice among peoples, 
and the rights of our common Humanity vindicated. 
Of course, for the moment, the call of Patriotism has 
the upper hand and dominates the world, but even 
now the idea of the closer union of the Allied nations, 
though born of antagonism and war, may later on, when 
present hatreds have died down, be one of the factors 
that will pave the way for the truer and more complete 
Internationalism of the future. 

The present war, as the Boer War and other wars 
have done before, gives rise to a singular ethical problem. 
The moral aspects of the wars in question are, generally 
speaking, perfectly plain. The right and wrong of the 
causes of the wars, i.e. the right and wrong when judged 
according to ethical standards universally admitted 
otherwise in private life, must be obvious, one would 
think, to any one judging impartially on the facts. 
Yet how is it that men of good repute personally, and 
decently honourable in private life, can bring them- 
selves in international concerns to profess publicly to 
justify the side of their own country, when it is not 
merely in the wrong, but criminally in the wrong ? 
We have all of us known, at the time of the Boer War, 
Englishmen who as ordinary citizens were men of 
integrity, truthful and fair in their deahngs, and who 
nevertheless pretended to justify the action of the 
British Government in its aggression on the two South 
African Republics, not to speak of the " methods of 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 265 

barbarism " in its conduct of the war. These men 
ignored, or lamely attempted by falsehoods to explain 
away, the admitted facts of the case. To-day we see 
precisely the same phenomenon in the case of Germany. 
Here again you have men, doubtless equally honourable 
in their private life and dealings, who are prepared to 
come forth publicly and defend an act of international 
brigandage, and this without one word of reprobation 
for the further inhuman crimes committed in carrying 
it out. Now, how are these things to be reconciled ? 
The self-interest of men holding positions under govern- 
ment, or the party considerations of politicians, no 
doubt is a large, perhaps the chief, factor therein. 
But these merely selfish reasons would hardly suffice 
completely to explain the case in all instances, though 
they might do so in some. I think we are driven to 
the conclusion that a genuine psychological blindness 
plays its part in the matter. Some at least of these 
men are really affected by a kind of ethical myopia 
for the time being ; the patriotic sentiment which they 
have possibly inherited, or which in any case has been 
hammered into them from their youth up, and has 
lately been taking on the aspect of a religion, has uncon- 
sciously warped their whole ethical nature. Of course, 
there are a large number who know well enough that 
their country is wrong, and only defend it from inter- 
ested motives. But I believe there are also some who 
are not consciously dishonest in the matter and to 
whom the foregoing remarks will apply. This will 
continue to be the case, it is to be feared, until the 
modern religion of Patriotism is supplanted in the 
minds of men by the religion of Humanity, the senti- 
ment of a common human brotherhood. Once admit 



266 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

Patriotism as the highest sentiment, as religion, and 
you have the problem of contradictory Patriotisms to 
deal with. When they laud Patriotism, people gener- 
ally mean their own Patriotism. But how about 
" the other fellow's " Patriotism ? How about the 
Prussian's, for example ? If " My country right or 
wrong " is a noble sentiment on the banks of the 
Thames, how does it look on the banks of the Spree ? 
Let us turn now to other phases of the modern mind. 
One of the curious things I have noted is the growth 
for at least a generation past in the medical profession 
of what I may term medical asceticism. Asceticism, 
it should not be forgotten, is quite as constant a phe- 
nomenon of human psychology as self-indulgence. We 
have before had theological asceticism, to wit, an 
asceticism based on the notion of the harsh treatment 
of the body being conducive to the welfare of the soul. 
This, of course, has played a great part at different periods 
in the Christian religion, but we find it largely sup- 
planted at the present day by medical asceticism. The 
perennial ascetic bias of the human mind, feeling the 
theological basis of ascetic practice to be unsatisfac- 
tory and out of harmony with the general modern 
outlook on life, believes itself to have found a more 
satisfactory basis for the mortification of the flesh, not 
for the benefit of the soul of man, which has fallen 
into the background, but for the welfare of his body. 
Hence medical asceticism, which tends to reduce to 
the minimum, if not to utterly abolish, the lusts of the 
flesh and the sensible enjoyments of life, on physio- 
logical grounds. Take the case of alcohol. This is 
seen in the crusade, not of course against obvious 
excess, which every one condemns, but against alcohol 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 267 

altogether. I And this is only one manifestation of 
the tendency in question. It is the habit of the medical 
profession nowadays to forbid its patients, and to dis- 
courage, at least, on the part of mankind in general, 
the use or practice of anything conducive to the satis- 
faction or delight of the bodily sense. In all living, 
that which is conducive to the ease of the body is 
condemned. Not only in drinking is the mellowing 
influence of alcohol denounced as incompatible with 
bodily health, but the eating of everything that is 
palatable is declared noxious. Smoking is objected 
to, and has recently been sought to be made illegal 
for the young person. 

As an instance of the curious ascetic phase through 
which the art of medicine is passing, I may mention 
that a friend of mine, who was suffering during the 
very hot weather from the condition of the skin known 
as " prickly heat," was seriously advised by an able 
medical man that he should on no account indulge 
in cooling and effervescing drinks ! This patient, 
I should say, in spite of the injunction, continued to 
take his cooling and effervescing drinks, and the "prickly 
heat " symptoms went notwithstanding. It is difficult 
for a layman to regard the prohibition in question as 
anything else than a piece of medical asceticism, since 
it seems hardly possible that refreshing beverages, 

^ It is a noteworthy fact that the physical degeneration of the 
Scotchman of to-day is coincident with an increasing abste- 
miousness as regards whisky. There was, I believe, a Royal 
Commission established to inquire into the causes of Scottish 
degeneracy before the war, and, so far as I am aware, no 
report has as yet been made. It is not probable, however, 
that in the present anti-alcoholic state of pubUc opinion 
emphasis would be laid by any Royal Commission on these 
facts, still less any correlation be admitted between them. 



268 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

which give relief and tone to the system, can have an 
irritating effect on the skin. It is curious, but never- 
theless undoubtedly true, that at the present day there 
are many among the public who would lose confidence 
in a doctor who did not prescribe for them something 
of the nature of penitential and purgatorial diet. A 
generation or so ago the patients expected the doctor 
to order them highly coloured and nauseating drugs, 
so much so, that I knew of a medical man who used 
to keep different coloured waters with a little harmless 
but nauseous flavouring in them, to satisfy those of 
his patients who did not have much the matter with 
them, and who did not really require any medicine at 
all. The same practice has prevailed, I believe, in 
sundry London hospitals. At a still earlier date the 
" patient " public thought the doctor was not doing 
his duty if he did not prescribe copious blood-lettings. 
The fashion is now all for ascetic dieting ; no alcohol, 
no condiments, no smoking, no anything but what is 
to the bodily senses of man fade and insipid. As 
regards this whole question of dietetics, a medical 
friend of mine told me that in a recent interview with 
an elderly colleague, the author of a well-known book 
on the subject, he expressed his serious doubts whether 
the whole modern theory of diet had any scientific 
basis to it, to which the elder man replied, " You are 
twenty years younger than I am, but it seems you 
have already come to the conclusion at which I 
have only just arrived myself." The obvious and 
common-sense view, one would think, would be, that 
it is for every human being to find out by experience 
what suits him or her best, and that diet is not a subject 
on which any effective rules and regulations can be 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 269 

laid down for general observance. Medical, like other 
fashions, have their day and cease to be, though some- 
times, as with the bleeding mania, their passing may 
be slow. 

The principles and propaganda of Feminism were 
running high in the land up to the outbreak of the 
war, and though for the time being undoubtedly over- 
shadowed by the great events of the last two years, 
there is no reason for thinking that Feminism, theo- 
retical and practical, will not reassert itself when the 
present crisis is over. In my book on the subject I 
have distinguished between political and sentimental 
Feminism. The propaganda of Feminism has for its 
practical object to exalt the woman at the expense 
of the man. We have had echoes of sentimental 
Feminism during the war itself, notably, as already 
mentioned, in the case of Edith Cavell, where we have 
a woman exalted to the rank of a demi-goddess of 
heroism, while of the Belgian architect, Philippe Bancq, 
who suffered at the same time, for the same offence 
against the German invaders of his country, not a word 
has been said. Compare the case of Captain Fryatt, 
whose murder was even more in contravention of the 
laws of civilized war than that of Edith Cavell, and yet 
we hear of no streets named after him and no festivals 
in his honour ! The general theory of sentimental 
Feminism seems to be that the shooting of one woman 
non-combatant outweighs the murder of ten men non- 
combatants. Such divinity doth hedge a female of 
the human species ! 

As regards the theoretical basis of the Feminist 
contention, a case has recently come under my notice 
which may serve to supplement the instances, as given 



270 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in my book, of special pleading, and indeed of the 
complete perversion of scientific fact in the interest 
of Feminist theory. The object of the theorists of 
Feminism is to prove that woman is mentally the 
equal of man. If they can only make her out to be 
superior, so much the better. A Viennese professor, 
of Feminist proclivities, has recently, I think, fairly 
" taken the cake " (as the phrase goes) in this con- 
nexion. As is well known, it is the grey matter of the 
brain which is correlated with sensation, thought, and 
conscious action, while the white matter consists of 
nerve-strands communicating between the cell-group 
centres of grey matter. Hence the obvious fact that 
upon the quality and the amount of the grey matter 
depend the amount and quality of the intellect of the 
individual. Now, it is a further well-ascertained fact 
that the comparison of the brains of the average man 
and woman shows a vastly greater preponderance of 
grey to white cells in the former than in the latter. 
These well-authenticated, and hitherto universally 
admitted, scientific facts obviously constitute a very 
awkward stumbling-block in the way of the theory 
Feminists are anxious to propagate as regards sex- 
capacities. Accordingly, the Viennese Feminist pro- 
fessor spoken of decided to take the bull by the horns, 
and attack the well-established conclusions of science 
in this matter, by declaring the latter to be all wrong, 
the white and not the grey matter of the brain being 
the most important elements in its structure as cor- 
related with the higher mental processes ! Needless 
to say, the unbiased results of generations of research 
in cerebral structure and function stand now as firmly 
as ever they did, the unshotted broadside levelled 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 271 

against them by the distinguished Feminist Viennese 
professor notwithstanding. It is well for laymen to 
be on their guard against Feminist pseudo-science. 
That men professing to be savants can lend themselves 
to this species of charlatanry is nothing less than 
disgraceful. 

The present war is affording a stalking-horse for 
more nostrums than one The trick is to trace the 
atrocities and misdeeds of the Prusso-German Govern- 
ment and armies to the absence in Germany of the 
influence of one's own particular nostrum. Thus, the 
Feminist will try to persuade you that the crimes of 
the German Army are due to defects in the German 
character, arising from the absence of the cultus of 
Woman among German men and of the emancipation 
of Woman in the Feminist sense in the Fatherland. 
The shooting of Miss Cavell and sundry outrages on 
women in Belgium and the North of France, we are 
told, are referable to an insufficient spirit of gallantry 
or chivalry, i.e. of kowtowing to femalehood, on the 
part of German men. If female suffrage and female 
influence generally had been present in German social 
and political life, it is alleged, we should have had no 
war, or, in case of war, no " f rightfulness," and 
above all the sacrosanct sex would have been spared 
and treated with the due reverential awe which it 
becomes vile man to show in his dealings therewith. 
All this sort of talk is, I suppose, swallowed by a section 
of the British public at its face-value, being, as they 
are, utterly ignorant of the facts of the case. Either 
the Feminists who seek to make propaganda for their 
theories out of the misdeeds of the German Army do 
not know these facts themselves or they are dishonestj 



272 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

in their attempt to snatch an advantage out of the 
war-feeling of the British pubhc. As having had some 
considerable experience of Germany and things German 
before the war, I can answer for it that there has 
been now for years past as strong a current of Feminist 
sentiment and opinion in Germany as elsewhere, in all 
circles claiming to be advanced. The only difference 
is that in Germany, owing to Militarism with its blood- 
tax, the incidence of which, of course, fell exclusively 
on men, the injustice of allowing the sex exempted 
from the blood-tax to swamp with their votes the male 
elector who was subject to it came home, perhaps, 
more to the average " man in the street " than in 
other countries where the same conditions did not 
prevail. Books on Feminism had a wide circulation. 
Women had played a part in political agitation for a 
generation past, at least, in the largest political party 
in Germany. There was no sex-bar in the matter of 
membership of that party, or of the share taken in 
the life of its organization. There was and is, more- 
over, so far as I am aware, a special organization ex- 
isting in Germany for the furtherance of female suffrage 
and other " planks " in the ordinary Feminist pro- 
gramme, while, morebetoken, one of its most prominent 
leaders is more violent in her jingoism than Count 
Reventlow himself. All the talk about the position 
of the German woman, by those who have never lived 
in Germany, and do not in most cases even know the 
language, deserves nothing but contempt. It serves 
the purpose, however, I suppose, of Feminists and 
advocates of female privilege in general, for pointing 
a moral and adorning a tale in favour of their own 
nostrum. 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 273 

The trick of using a wave of war-hatred and prejudice 
for the purpose of snatching an advantage is not a 
new one, and Feminists are not the only offenders. 
In the present instance the religious bodies are quite 
equal to trying-on the same game. Just as certain 
Feminists seek to make out the " f rightfulness " of the 
German Army to be due to the absence of Feminism 
in Germany, so the Christian sects want to make it 
out to be due to German lack of " religion " and 
the influence of " materialism." This in face of the 
fact that the Kaiser talks more about God than all 
the prominent military and political personages on 
the side of the Allies put together, and that the most 
truculent incitements to national hatred and cruelty 
have been formulated from the pulpits of German 
Protestant pastors. They ignore at the same time the 
circumstance that the majority of the educated as well as 
the working classes of the French nation are avowedly 
freethinkers, and yet the French Army has not deve- 
loped any " f rightfulness " as yet, so far as I am aware. 
Of course, they will say, I suppose, that German religios- 
ity is not of their own true, genuine, and approved 
brand. This is the usual retort, and one that anybody 
can make, but the fact remains that you have in Ger- 
many all the accredited forms of Christianity repre- 
sented. Catholic and Protestant, with their services 
every Sunday, as in other countries. As for the decline 
in the belief in dogmatic theology, that is not peculiar 
to Germany, but is common to the whole civilized world. 

If I mistake not, the " social purity " mongers have 
also made an attempt to snatch their bit of advantage 
by exploiting current anti-Germanism. According to 
them, of course, the evil mentality from which the 

18 



274 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

German nation is alleged to be suffering at the present 
time is due to an insufficiently severe standard of 
sexual manners in their unhappy country. Now, this 
statement, I do not hesitate to say, speaking in com- 
parison with other countries, has no foundation what- 
ever in fact. Not only is there not a trace of evidence 
that laxity in sexual behaviour is more prevalent in 
Germany than among any other European peoples, 
but, if one comes to that, the Balkan populations, 
including the Servian and Roumanian, will probably 
be found on investigation to be farther from the chaste 
heaven of the " social purist " than any section of 
the German nation. Besides, it is well known that 
there was an active " social purity " campaign in 
Germany before the war, which was not, I believe, 
the case in (say) France or Italy. I can recall in the 
Spring of 1914 reading a long report in one of the 
leading German newspapers of a great " social purity " 
meeting in Frankfort, in which those enrolling them- 
selves in the league by which the meeting was called 
were required to take a pledge never under any cir- 
cumstances to utter a loose jest, or to tell a story that 
might raise the colour on the most sensitive maiden's 
cheek ! Besides, as regards cruelty, it would not be 
difficult to show, if one wanted to, that there is a ten- 
dency in the " social purity " campaign itself to develop 
cruelty : witness the flogging clauses of the so-called 
" White Slave " Act of 1912. No, it is assuredly not 
the absence of " Feminism " or of " religion," or of 
" social purity " which is responsible for the aggres- 
sive war-mania of Germany, or for the way the war 
has been conducted by the German Army. It is the 
ascendancy of Prussia and the Prussian military caste 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 275 

throughout the German-speaking countries of Central 
Europe, its material power in government, and its 
moral influence derived therefrom, with its inculcation 
of war and military glory as the highest aim of the 
nation — this is the all-sufhcient explanation of what 
has happened. The disingenuous attempts to exploit 
the situation in the interest of special nostrums are 
beside the mark and altogether lacking in basis. 

In the short sketch contained in the present volume, 
we have come into contact with many social and 
intellectual changes, in this country especially, though 
corresponding changes might easily be traced through- 
out the civilized world, many of them by no means 
slight in their character, within the limits of a lifetime, 
representing at the moment of writing scarcely two 
generations. 

The economic changes that have taken place, con- 
siderable though they have been, have not been funda- 
mental. They have been on the line of continuous 
development, rather than revolutionary in character. 
The great industry of modern times was already in 
full swing when I was born. All the main trunk-lines 
of the English railways have been in existence as long 
as I can remember. The modern forms of industry, 
commerce, and finance were already in substance 
firmly established a generation or two before I was 
born. Great as has been their development during 
my lifetime, they are not changed in essentials. The 
" opening-up " of the outlying, the barbaric, and 
savage parts of the earth to capitalistic enterprise 
and exploitation has gone on apace with geographical 
exploration and discovery. The great capitalistic era 
has given birth to Socialism as an active faith and 



276 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

ideal with a large section of the working-classes, and 
with thinking men and sincere well-wishers for Human- 
ity among all classes. The growth of socialistic sym- 
pathy among large sections of the population, as well 
as the formation of a Socialist party that counts in 
all countries, are events that have evolved themselves 
since my youth. Of the further development of these 
factors, or of the appearance above the horizon in the 
near future of new factors, I refrain from speculating 
at the present moment. Qui vivra verra ! — whether 
I shall be one of those who will see them I know not. 

In politics I have seen the aftermath of the '48 move- 
ment, and the rise of the new spread-eagleism, the 
pohtical side of the latter-day developments of Capital- 
ism, with the race of modern armaments which has 
issued in the present World War. I have witnessed 
the growth of this upas-tree of modern Imperialism 
in all civilized countries — the rush for new markets 
and for new populations to force under the yoke of 
wage-slavery, and all under cover of the hypocritical 
" swindle " of Patriotism, the " white man's burden," 
and so forth. At the same time I have witnessed the 
birth and growth among the various nations of the 
tender plant of Internationalism, and have done my 
little to promote it ; and although for the moment 
beaten down by the winds of national hatred and 
passion, I am more convinced than ever that before 
another two or three generations are passed it will 
have grown to be a mighty tree, while the principles 
opposed to it will be withering beneath its shade, as 
the ideal of national independence will largely have 
given way before that of national interdependence. 

In Philosophy, when I began my studies the British 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 217 

empiricists and the Scottish Psychologists held the 
field. Mill, Bain, and Lewes, on the one side, and 
Hamilton and Mansel on the other, were in their glory. 
But the great English philosopher of the seventies and 
eighties was Herbert Spencer, whose " synthetic philo- 
sophy " was regarded as the last word of speculative 
wisdom. By way of reaction there is now, of course, 
a tendency unduly to depreciate Spencer. This period 
was followed by the rise of the young Hegelian school 
at Oxford, partly influenced by a book published some 
years before, Hutchison Stirling's " Secret of Hegel." 
This movement, which ran on for many years, met 
with its reaction at the opening of the twentieth cen- 
tury, in the shape of various counter-currents, such 
as Pragmatism at Oxford, and the Philosophy of Henri 
Bergson, in which the Concept is discredited, and Sense 
and Immediate Consciousness as the content of Time 
take the place of the Absolute. The late Professor 
Sidgwick is reported to have said on one occasion, 
shortly before his death : " One of the things I could 
never understand is the relation of the Absolute to 
Time." This difficulty of interpreting to oneself the 
inner meaning and significance of Time as regards the 
Absolute I confess to having felt, and hence can sym- 
pathize with. Bergson cuts the knot, if I understand 
him rightly, in identifying Time with the Absolute 
sans phrase. 

But perhaps the most remarkable, and in the true 
sense of the word epoch-making, change which has 
taken place within the experience of my lifetime has 
been the outlook opened up to civilized mankind at 
large by the doctrine of Evolution. When I was 
born the notion of Evolution was the dream of a few 



278 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

isolated thinkers. Now it is the basis of Civilized 
Man's conception of the Universe. This stupendous 
revolution in the intellectual outlook is comparable, 
mutatis mutandis, with the revolution in material 
things consequent on the transformation of the con- 
ditions of human life wrought by the introduction of 
the machine industry and the new methods of loco- 
motion in the early part of the nineteenth century. 
The intellectual world, before and after the acceptance 
of the doctrine of Evolution, is in its own way analogous 
to the material world before and after the introduction 
of machinery, so far as regards the chasm that divides 
the two epochs from one another — in other words, 
that separates the world of to-day from all previous 
periods of human history. The changes I have wit- 
nessed in the fifty-odd years which these reminiscences 
cover, as regards speculative thought, religious senti- 
ment, and toleration of opinion in the British people, 
are sufficiently dealt with in previous chapters of 
this book. 

When one considers the fragment of the course of 
history through which one has lived, with its passing 
show, and the queer personalities that have come 
and gone while it lasted, the usual reflexions on the 
evanescence of human interests and concerns crowd 
in upon us. 

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep : 
And Bahrim, that great Hunter — the Wild Ass 
Stamps o'er his Head and he Ues fast asleep. 

So it is with the transience of our mundane affairs. 
But as regards the actual scenes of our doings and 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 279 

sufferings through Hfe, " Old Khayyam " at least had 
the prospect of his " wilderness," which he found 
" Paradise enow," remaining after his death as it was 
in his life, while we, living in the great capitalistic 
era, have to see the " wildernesses " and " paradises " 
of our youth become the emplacement of slums or 
factories even before we die. I, for my part, should 
not mind the lion and the lizard disporting them- 
selves on the sites of my youthful or mature relaxations, 
but I must confess I do resent the thought of the 
railway company keeping them in a metamorphosed 
condition as shunting yards. I would certainly much 
rather think that the lion and the lizard keep the 
Halls where I had " gloried and drunk deep " (not 
that I ever did so), than that their sites should be 
reserved, not for the roar of the lion, but for the shriek 
of the steam whistle. Such is sentiment ! 

The interest and utility for future ages of the class 
of literature of which the present work may be taken 
as a humble and imperfect example have never as yet 
been fully recognized. The historian, who has made 
it his task to resuscitate for his contemporaries a period 
of the past, can never have too much contemporary 
material of this kind at his disposal. In some respects, 
the less brilliantly original the writer is, provided he 
is but a fairly keen observer and gifted with average 
powers of generalization, the more valuable are his 
notes and comments. Of this fact Pepys' Diary is a 
crucial illustration. Pepys was by no means a man of 
genius, but his Diary has justly become a classic, as 
affording us an insight into the real life lived in England 
in the second half of the seventeenth century, such as 
we have for few other periods. What would the modem 



280 REMINISCENCES AND REFLEXIONS 

classical scholar not give to have such an imperfect 
set of reminiscences and reflexions even as those con- 
tained in the foregoing pages, written in the year ii6 
by an inhabitant (say) of Rome, Alexandria, or Antioch, 
born in the year 54. How many points would be made 
clear concerning that interesting period of the world's 
history, which are hopelessly obscure to us now. It 
would not be amiss if, say, in some family where the 
literary faculty were not wholly lacking, it should be 
regarded as a sacred duty for one member of the family, 
at least, in every generation, on reaching sixty years 
of age, to pen, for better or for worse, his own account 
of the times he had lived through. Such a series of 
autobiographical sketches succeeding each other in a 
continuous chain of varying literary or intellectual 
merit, some clever, some commonplace, or even stupid, 
would be an aid in the distant future to the appre- 
ciation of past history which would be simply priceless, 
as compared with anything the present-day historian 
has at his disposal for his investigations into the his- 
torical period he may be at work upon. If but one 
person in every generation, before passing into the 
eternal silences, would leave as a legacy to future 
mankind a systematic sketch of the inner life of the 
world and his relations to it, for the fifty or sixty years 
that his experience covers, he would be performing a 
real, and, as far as it went, inestimable service to the 
understanding of human psychology in its historical 
development, and to laying the foundations of a scientific 
theory of history. 



INDEX 



Abel, Dr. Carl, 34 

Adler, Victor, 143-4, 146-7 

Atheism and Agnosticism, 

thoughts on, 190-4 
Aveling, Edward, 109-10 
Aveling, Eleanor Marx, 108-9 

Bauer, Stephen, 144-5 
Bebel, August, 140-2, 146 
Bergson, Henri, 213-15, 218 
Blatchford, Robert, 90 
Blavatsky, Madame, 203-4 
Boulting, William, 21-3 
Bradlaugh, Charles, 36-8 
Braham, John, early nineteenth- 
century singer, 12 
Brighton, childhood at, 10 
Browning, Robert, 59 
Burns, John, 104-8 
Burrows, Herbert, iii 

Champion, H. H., 100-2 
Club and Temple life, 173-86 
Colenso, Bishop, 18-19 
Cologne Cathedral, 34 
Commune, the, 29-32, 128-30, 

159 
Croydon, author's life at, 36 

Dialectical Society, the, 2 2 7-8 

Ellis, Havelock, 221-2 
Encke's Comet, 1861, 10 
Engels, Friedrich, 45-57 
European War, the, 234-56 



Evangelical theology, 13-14, 

16 
Evolution, 277-8 

Feminism, 163, 196-200, 269- 

74 
Fox Bourne, 228-9 
Franco-Prussian War, 15, 28 
French Revolution, 12 

Gallenga, correspondent of The 

Times, 1880, 35 
Glennie, Stuart, 225-6 
Graham, Cunninghame, 230-1 
Grayson, Victor, 91 
Greulich, Hermann, 134-7 
Guesde, Jules, 132-4 

Haldane, Lord, 211-13 

Hampstead, author's school- 
life at, 20-2 

Hyndman, Henry Mayers, 73- 
5, 78, 94-100, 103 

International Association, the, 

38-40, 56 
International Congresses — 

Amsterdam, 153 

Copenhagen, 154 

London, 152 

Mainz, 153 

Paris, 150-2 

Stuttgart, 153 

Ziirich, 151 
International Review, The, 104 



282 



INDEX 



Jaurds, Jean, 130-3, 204, 214 
Journalism, thoughts on, 178 
Journalist, the author as, 34, 
156, 166 
Essays on Socialism, 157-9, 

161, 168-9 
Collaboration with William 

Morris, 160 
Reformation in Germany, 

163-4 
Joynes, James Leigh, 102-4 
Jung, Hermann, 39-41 

Kowalewski, Maxim, 149-50 
Kropotkin, Prince, 42-4 

Lafargue, Paul, 13 1-2 
Late- Victorian period, 58-72, 
186 

Anthropology, 70 

Art, 62-3 

Club and Temple life, 173-86 

History, 67-9 

Literature, 59-64, 71 

Mentality, 188-210 

Music, 65 

Philosophy, 66-7 
Leamington, childhood at, 9 
Lee, Henry William, 112 
Levy, J. H., 229-30 
Lewes, Vivian Byam, chemist, 

20-1 
Literary work, the author's, 

157-72 
Roots of Reality, The 
169-70 

Marriage Laws, the, 200-2 
Marx, Karl, 30-2, 39, 45, 48, 

52-3 

The Marxian School, 46-7 
Medical asceticism, 266-9 
Michels, Robert, 145-7 
Mid- Victorian life, ia-27 

Literature, 11, 19-20, 28 

Religion, 12-20 



Mid- Victorian economics and 

politics, 15 
Music, 16-17 
Morris, William, 75-6, 80-1, 

87, 95, 97, 103, 109-10, 

117-22 
Moscheles, F61ix, 232-3 
Most, Johannes, Socialist and 

Anarchist, 41 
Music, author's early devotion 

to, 27, 32 

Patriotism, 195-6, 263-6 
Pernerstorfer, Engelbert, 144 
Philosophy, 216-19, 276-7 
Popular thought in England, 
recent development of, 
188-210, 222-3 
Religion, 188-94 
Patriotism, 195-6 
Positivism, 30-1 

Quelch, Harry, 111-12, 123, 153 

Revolutionary tradition, 126-7 
Rheims in the first weeks of 
the war, 239-45 

Sabbatarianism, 13 

Scheu, Andreas, 108 

Sharp, Wilham (" Fiona 

Macieod "), 219 
Shaw, George Bernard, 103, 

1 13-17, 165, 262 
Smith, Adolphe, 53-6, 108 
Socialism, 29, 36-8, 45-57. 
92-3, 263, 275 
Democratic Federation, the, 

38, 73-93 
International Association, 

the, 38-40, 56 
Modern English Socialist 

Movement, 58 
Socialist League, the, 80-5 
Personalities of the Socialist 
Movement in England, 94- 

125 



INDEX 



288 



Personalities of the Socialist 

Movement abroad, 126-155 
German Social Democratic 

party, the, 137-8, 250-1 
Philosophy of Socialism, 

170-72 
Effect of the war on the 

Socialist Movement, 252 
Social Democratic Federation, 

the, 73-93 
Founded by Hyndman in 

1882, 73-4 
Its paper. Justice, 75 
Development, 76-7 
The " split," 78 
Reconstituted as the British 

Socialist Party, 91 
South- African War, the, 183 



Stepniak, Sergius, 148-9 
Streatham in 1870, 28 
Supernatural, author's early 
belief in the, 23-7 

Taylor, Helen, iio-ii 
Temple, the, 173, 180 
Tillett, Ben, 122-5 
To-Day, monthly Socialist re- 
view, 103 

Von Hartmann, Edward, 35-6 

Warwick, the Countess of, 226-7 
Williams, J. E., iii 

Zurich, Socialist Congress at, 
139 



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